Pulse
by school-is-my-purgatory
Summary: Edward thinks he's seen it all when he moved to Forks. But Bella's like nothing he's ever seen in his 108 years. She doesn't talk. She's an outcast. She knows High school isn't everything. She has a silent mind and a HUGE secret. AU I DONT OWN TWILIGHT!
1. Chapter 1

EPOV

It was our first day at a new school. We got to be the new kids, again. I found myself wishing for the millionth time that I had been changed at an older age. I would do almost anything to get out of the repetitive torture that was high school.

Just now, I was sitting on the couch in my room watching the numbers on the clock change from one minute to the next. I was waiting for it to become a reasonable time to leave for school. I really wasn't looking forward to this again. I would get to walk down the hallways of a small-town school while hearing everyone's thoughts yell about how beautiful and attractive my whole family was.

Every town was the same. We would become the center of gossip and everyone would have his or her own opinion. Most everyone would want to date at least one person in my family, and I would be the most wanted target considering I was the only one who wasn't 'taken'.

_Come on Edward, it's time to go._ Alice's thoughts jerked me out of my reverie. My eyes flicked to the clock on their own accord and saw that it was indeed an acceptable time to leave. Sighing, I stood up and walked out to the car to wait for the rest of my family.

Soon, everyone was piled in. We pulled out of the garage and I raced at my usual speed to school. We were earlier than normal today so we could get our schedules before everyone else arrived.

We all piled out and I was aware of eyes on us from all the students that were early. As a group, we headed towards the door of the office. Inside, there were plants covering every surface, as if there wasn't enough foliage outside. A woman with frizzy red hair sat at a desk surrounded by stacks of papers. I cleared my throat to get her attention. Her head whipped up and I saw her eyes widen as she took in the sight of us. I smirked.

"Hello. I'm Edward Cullen. My family and I would like to get our schedules." Her thoughts were in a complete scramble. We stood and waited for a while before she came back to the present.

"Oh! Of course. Here." She reached under the desk and removed a small stack of papers. "Which one of you if Emmett Cullen?" Emmett stepped forward and took a map and schedule out of her hands. "Rosalie Hale?" Rose stepped forward and took her papers. She and Emmett walked out together.

_So he's taken._ I grimaced at her thoughts. It was always the same. Even the adults couldn't help but turn their heads as we walked by.

"Alice Cullen?" Alice stepped forward to take her schedule and then stepped aside to wait for Jasper.

_Please be waiting on the blond one. They're both gorgeous, but there's something about the other one that draws me in. No, Nancy. He's too young. It's ridiculous to even be thinking like that. _Her thoughts were loud, as if she were shouting. I hated this part of being a vampire. Sometimes, I wished we weren't all so attractive. It's not like we wouldn't be able to attract our prey with our other skills.

"Jasper Hale?" It seemed Mrs. Cope had finally regained control of her thoughts long enough to hand out the other papers. Even so, there was no hiding the relief she felt when it was Jasper who walked out with his arm around Alice's waist.

"Edward Cullen?" I stepped forward_. It fits him, even if it is sort of old-fashioned. Come to think of it, they all seem to have older names. Oh well, I'm not picky-no. Stop this right now…_

Her thoughts faded out as I put as much distance between us as I could. The halls were more crowded now, and the humans seemed to part before me. Catching a glimpse of myself in one of their minds, I saw that I was scowling fiercely. I tried to rearrange my features into something that vaguely resembled an expression of bored indifference.

I didn't realize how little attention I was sparing for walking until there was a student that didn't naturally shy away from me. I ran right into her.

She bent to pick up all her books without glancing at me. It was as if she didn't even expect me to stop and help. I squatted next to her anyway. As I worked, I took my time to look at her.

There really wasn't much to see. Unlike just about every other girl her age, this girl's clothes were not in the least bit inappropriate. In fact, I couldn't even see her face because of the large hood that covered it. She had a large black sweatshirt that covered almost all of her and came down to her knees. Underneath that, she wore a pair of black jeans that seemed to be three sizes too big.

She was wearing gloves on her hands and I could see the bit of her wrist that was exposed pulsing with her blood. She smelled better than most humans, but not too good that I couldn't control myself. I could hear her heartbeat and tried to focus on something else. The other hand was shoved in her pocket.

She noticed me looking at her and looked up and her heart raced. It was the natural human reaction to one of us. With a shock, I realized that I couldn't even see through the darkness that her giant hood cast around her face. There were just two eyes that shone out, but I couldn't really tell what color they were. This strange blindness was something I hadn't experienced sense I had become a vampire. It unsettled me.

We had her books in a pile now and I handed them back to her. I think she smiled at me, but walked away before I had a chance to talk to her.

_OMG! If I were him, I'd go home and shower before school starts. I feel bad for him. He didn't have a chance to realize how freaky Bella is before she made him interact with her. She's probably desperate to meet someone who's just as weird as she is. Too bad for her. He's too cute to be weird. Besides, he's mine._

I turned around to see where the particularly malicious and misguided thoughts were coming from. A short girl with a pile of curls atop her head was standing behind me. She saw me looking at her and gave a smile that was supposed to be flirtatious.

"Sorry you had to go through that. That was Bella. Talk about a freak." I wondered how someone could make any friends by being that cruel and close-minded. Then again, I had seen it happen again and again at every school I'd been to. Apparently, the girl whose books I'd knocked down had been the outcast of the school.

"I'm Jessica. You must be one of the Cullens. We heard you guys were moving here." _This is the biggest thing to happen since Bella's disappearance. She's such a liar, trying to draw attention to herself like that. There is no way she doesn't remember what happened. She probably got pregnant and ran off before she started to show and then came back after giving her kid to an orphanage._

Apparently, Jessica was the gossip queen of the school. I waited for her to stop talking and get the point that I really didn't want to talk to anyone. The sooner we became outcasts, the better.

Sadly, Jessica wasn't one to take a hint, so I walked all the way to my first class with her trailing behind me like a lost puppy. Just as I feared she had the same class as me, the warning bell rang and she walked out of the room.

I sighed and slumped back into the seat.

_Have a good morning?_ Alice laughed as she sat down in a seat next to me. We were in the back of the class. _Are any of the girls catching your eye?_ She chuckled, but I could hear the concern behind it. My whole family really did worry about me. They just didn't get that I was perfectly fine by myself. I rolled my eyes, pretending to have not noticed the concern.

"Very funny Alice." My lips moved so fast that no human would have been able to see it. My voice was at normal volume, but it was pitched so low that no human would have heard. Alice had no such problem.

_Whatever. Hey, I saw you run into that Bella girl. Did you hear the whispers? Everyone keeps talking about how we're the biggest things to happen since her disappearing act. Do you have any idea what that's about?_

"I was just about to ask you the same thing. It seems like no one knows what happened. Supposedly, Bella herself doesn't remember what happened."

_Do you know how long she was gone?_

"I don't. However, Jessica seemed to think it was enough time for her to run away before she started to show she was pregnant and then get back after the baby was born." I smirked, and Alice did too.

_So, around six months. Alice thought. Honestly, that's quite a long time. If Jessica even bothers to consider things like dates and the amount of time people were gone._

I chuckled quietly and then turned back to the front and proceeded to zone out for the rest of the class.

The rest of my morning classes went like that. I walked into the lunchroom, not looking forward to the upcoming experience. Alice had seen at least ten people planning to come up and ask one of us out. Most of them were for me.

I went through the line and headed toward an empty table in the back of the room. Just as I was almost there, Jessica came up and stood in front of me.

"Hey Edward. I wanted to ask you if you wanted to take me to dinner tomorrow night." She said. There was no doubt in her mind that I would say yes. I almost laughed, but restrained myself. Any human boy from these days wouldn't have bothered.

"No, thank you." I tried to be as curt as possible even though I knew it would have no effect. This would not be the last time Jessica would ask me out. Alice could prove it.

The laugh I had swallowed earlier bubbled dangerously close to the surface when I saw the expression on Jessica's face. I wasn't one to laugh at someone's pain, but Jessica wasn't going through pain. She was just embarrassed.

Before I had time to worry about keeping my laugh under control, Jessica whirled around only to have someone do the laughing for me.

At first, I didn't realize what I was hearing. It started out as just a light giggle from the corner of the room. I turned to where it was coming from and saw Bella sitting alone at a table with her hand raised to her mouth as if to hide the fact that she was laughing at Jessica. I noticed she still had her gloves on.

Bella was laughing so quietly that only a vampire or someone sitting right next to her would have heard. I glanced over to my family. They had sat down during my time talking to Jessica and were now laughing quietly as well.

I strode over to them and sat down. We spent the rest of lunch staring off into space and declining dates.

At one point, I looked over to where Bella was sitting. From one look, I could tell that she didn't mind being an outcast. In fact, it seemed almost as though she encouraged it. She was sitting at her own table with a water bottle sitting in front of her. There seemed to be a dry-erase board on the seat next to her, but I dismissed that. She was listening to an iPod. I listened closely but could only pick out a few notes. The volume seemed to be as low as it could go. There was a book in front of her and I squinted to see the words.

She was reading Wuthering Heights. Seriously? Bella hardly seemed like any other teenager I had ever met. Then again, that was probably why she was sitting alone. High schoolers always were afraid of different.

So then why was she sitting there as if none of this bothered her? It went against everything I had ever learned about humans in the last hundred years.

It was then that I realized that I didn't know the answer to my questions. Normally, I would reach out and read someone's mind, but I couldn't seem to read hers. I focused. Nothing. This had never happened before. What was going on?

Just then, she turned around. I still couldn't see her face, but her shoulders were shaking in a way that suggested more laughter. I felt a strange urge to know why she was laughing and to be able to join in, and it confused me for a second. But of course I would feel like that. I was used to being able to reach out with my mind to find out what was amusing and then be able to laugh privately along. So naturally, I would want to do the same thing when I saw her laughing. The only difference was that now I had no idea what was so funny.

Seconds later, I looked up to see Jessica and her followers creeping up behind Bella. A girl named Lauren had a bottle of soda with her and I peeked into her mind to see what she was planning to do with it. I almost growled when I heard what they were about to do. Sadly, there wasn't much I could do about it besides watch it play out.

They were just passing behind her when Lauren stumbled-quite obviously faking-over mid air. Her soda bottle flew up in the air and landed with unusual accuracy on Bella's head. It dumped out on her hood and streamed down her shirt. Luckily, the black swallowed it up and left it looking much as it had before. In fact, even with my vampire eyesight, I had trouble seeing the stain it had surely left. I wondered sadly if that was why Bella only wore black. Maybe it was just to cover up all of the stains that came from what seemed to be a regular lunchtime tradition.

Bella turned around and I saw that her shoulders were shaking. For a second, I thought she was crying. Then, she reached down and picked up the whiteboard that I had noticed earlier and started to write furiously with a marker she had taken out of her pocket. In seconds, she held up a sign to Lauren.

**Seriously? We do this every lunch. You can't even tell you did anything. That's the magic of black. When are you going to realize that this accomplishes nothing?**

That was when I realized that she wasn't crying. She was laughing.

Bella was nothing like any other teenager I had met. It seemed like she was the only one who could grasp the fact that high school was only four years of your life, and that it didn't really matter what others thought of you because you'd be out of there soon, and you'd probably never see anyone ever again. I admired her for it.

_Poor Bella. I wish I could go stand up for her, but she's doing fine on her own. Besides, she made it quite clear that she didn't want to talk to me last time I tried. I wonder what happened when she disappeared. It must have been horrible. I still can't believe she would push me away though. We used to be best friends._

I looked up to see where the only kind thoughts were coming from. I found a small girl who I now remembered was in my Government class. Her name was Angela. Unfortunately, the thoughts that had faded away while I was so focused on Bella now came back as I listened to Angela's. Sadly, Lauren's were the next ones I got to hear.

_Serves her right for being such a freak. She doesn't hang out with anybody. She doesn't even talk anymore. Anyway, you can totally tell that we spilled on her. She's just in denial._

So that just added to the mystery that was Bella Swan. She was a self-proclaimed social outcast who had disappeared for months and didn't care that nobody liked her. She read old-fashioned books and never talked. I filled Alice in on all I'd heard and then wondered why we were taking such an interest in her. We'd seen people like this before. There was at least one outcast in every school. Usually, the 'freaks' would band together, but in as small a school as this, Bella seemed to be the only one.

Of course, my family and I were freaks too, but Bella couldn't afford to band with us. It could kill her. Besides, I doubted that even if there were other freaks that Bella would hang out around them. Judging by what Angela had said-or thought, really-Bella _wanted_ to be alone. It reminded me of my family in a way. For a second, I wondered if Bella was a vampire too, but then I remembered how she had smelled so good in the hallway, and how I had felt her heartbeat when I bumped into her. Heck, I had seen her heartbeat. No, she was just a weirdly mature and antisocial human.

The bell rang then, and it seemed long overdue. The lunch period had seemed so much longer than any other I had ever had. Maybe it was just because so many things had happened. Bella Swan had already changed my life, and I'd never even talked to her. Then again, it seemed as though no one had talked to her since she came back.

Sighing, and deciding I had already spent way too much time speculating about someone who didn't even matter, I got up and headed toward my next class. It was Biology, in building 6 with Mr. Banner. I really wasn't looking forward to it. There was nothing new this class could teach me. I had already gone through college twice on some branching of this subject.

I walked in and stood at the front of the class, at some sort of a loss. Slowly, the class filled up with students. Still, I stood waiting for the teacher to come in. Finally, he came in just as the bell rang. Directly behind him was Bella, and she seemed to be having an argument with him.

"I'm sorry Isabella. There can be no exceptions. You'll have to talk to Mrs. Muland later. You simply can't miss my class for some musical fantasy you somehow got stuck in your head."

She scribbled on the board cradled in the crook of her arm and I peeked over her shoulder to see what it said.

**Please Mr. Banner? I could still keep up with my work. You could tell me what we covered and I would get all the homework done. I can't switch out any of my other classes, but I really want to play the piano with the band.**

"We've already discussed this, Ms. Swan. You are not allowed to skip my class under any circumstances. I don't care if you're a piano protégée. Now go take your seat before I lose my temper."

Even without Jasper, I could see Bella's rage from the way she turned and marched swiftly to the only empty lab table. I realized that I would most likely be sitting next to her. Poor girl. Humans couldn't help being scared of us.

Mr. Banner seemed to have been so distracted that he completely missed my presence and went to sit in his desk. I stopped him before he could.

"Excuse me. I'm Edward Cullen. I'm new here." I said.

"Of course." _I could swear he wasn't there a second ago._ I smirked. Humans often seemed to think that around me. However, this was the first time the human hadn't been right. "I'll get you a book at the end of class. What did you study at your last school before you left?"

I spent the next couple minutes convincing him that I was on the same page as his class was before I was allowed to sit down. Of course, I was probably even more advanced than him, but he could never know that.

"You'll be sitting next to Ms. Swan. She's right there. She will be your lab partner for the rest of the year."

I looked up to see Bella gripping her whiteboard with clenched hands. She still had gloves on, and I wondered if she ever took them off. In fact, I don't think there was a single piece of skin showing on her. I went back to sit by her.

"Hello. My name is Edward Cullen." She turned to look at me, as if in shock, and then took out her marker.

**Why are you talking to me?**

"Well, I am your lab partner. If we're going to be working together all year, I would hate to not get along with you." It was a plausible excuse, but I knew it wasn't true. I had never really cared what my lab partner thought of me. Why should that change now? Maybe I just wanted to see if I could unlock the secrets of her mind by talking to her.

**Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant, why aren't you ignoring me like everyone else?**

"Maybe I'm not like everyone else. Besides, I'm an outcast too. We should stick together." Even as I said that, I knew I was lying. I couldn't even hang out with her anyway. It was too risky.

**Did you ever consider that I like being a freak? Besides the occasional hot soup or drink dumped on you, no one really notices you.**

"Why would you want to be ignored?"

**I think you're missing the point.**

"And what would that point be?" I was teasing her, so the seriousness of her answer surprised me.

**Stay away from me. I'll work with you on our labs when it's needed. Other than that, I'd just like to be left alone. Go date Jessica or something. You certainly could become part of the 'in' crowd. I don't care, just leave me be.**

I turned back around to face the front of the room, shocked. I had never been treated like that before. No one had ever spoken to me like that, especially not a girl. It was a much needed wake up call. I just needed to adjust my perspective on the world.

Now that I wasn't talking to Bella, there was nothing to distract me from her scent. It pressed in around me and caused venom to well in my mouth-reminding me that I needed to hunt tonight. I tried to focus on the lecture to distract myself, but found that he was discussing the stages of meiosis. I'd heard this particular lecture many times before.

The class crawled by. Halfway through, I gave up trying to focus on anything and just let my thoughts drift. I found myself thinking about the strange human sitting next to me. It seemed that she occupied my every thought already. No other human had ever affected me in this way. But, of course, it made sense. I couldn't read her mind and she didn't follow any normal human behavior patterns. Naturally, that would cause me, a 108-year-old vampire, to take notice. It was the only thing that explained this.

Just then, the bell rang. Bella leapt up and fled the room as if the hounds of hell were after her.

The rest of my day was uneventful. I went home with my family, but my mind was elsewhere. I wondered what had caused me to think about Bella so much. She hadn't done much to bring about suspicion. Still, sitting next to her had given me the undeniable feeling that something about her just wasn't right; natural.

And I was going to figure out what it was.

**A/N: So there you go. I hope you like it. I'm planning on going with longer chapters, but that will mean longer times between updates. Hope y'all can be patient with me.**

**Do you like my story? Please review and tell me what you think!**


	2. Chapter 2

BPOV

I got out of bed feeling much the same as I had when I had gotten in. You know how it's like that some times. When you are just as tired when you get up, as you were that night.

I had spent almost the whole night studying for my online college classes. I found it so much easier to learn at my own pace than at school, so naturally, I had taught myself all my high school classes and had now moved on to college level classes. I spent all my nights working into the wee hours of the morning. I had always had trouble sleeping, so there really was no point in sitting, bored, while waiting for sleep that would never come.

I had finally crawled into bed last night to the sounds of Charlie getting ready for work. It had been a rough night.

I really wasn't looking forward to school today. There was a new family that was coming and they had five kids. It was a big thing, and when big things happen in small towns, it reminds people of other big things that had happened. People would be talking about me today.

But it wasn't my fault. I didn't _want_ to go missing. I thought as I pulled my oversized sweatshirt and pants on over the tights, gloves, tee-shirt, and socks that I wore at all times. I had no say in my disappearance.

I had been back for a year now after seven months of going missing. Ever since I had gotten back, I had worn these horrible black and baggy clothes. Still, it was better than the alternative. I couldn't stand to have my skin and face showing for all to see, not after what had happened.

You see, I had lied. I remembered _everything_ that had happened to me while I was gone in horrific, vivid detail. But it was too terrible to share, so I had lied.

A glance at the clock brought me back to earth and I ran out the door. I didn't want breakfast anyway. I hopped in my giant truck and drove to school at an excruciatingly slow pace, pulling up in the spot next to the dumpster. It was where I always parked.

I noticed a new car that was in the parking lot. It was a silver Volvo. Seems like the new kids were loaded.

The single blessing of the Cullens was a curse in disguise. I had thought that everyone would be too focused on them to bully me. I was wrong. It seemed that everyone wanted to show the Cullens how cool they were by pushing me around. Even when they were no where in sight.

I got my first look at a Cullen before homeroom. I had been walking down the hall, immersed in thought when one bumped into me. I knew it was one of the new kids immediately, no one in school had perfume that smelled like that. However, I doubted they would help me up, so I was surprised to see a second pair of hands gathering my books.

I shoved one hand in my pocket as I stood up, and I felt my heart race as I took in the face of the person standing before me. He had pale hands, gold eyes, and I heartbreakingly beautiful face. His mussed hair fell into one of his eyes and I felt a strange urge to brush it away.

He took in a breath and I walked away before he could say anything. I hadn't talked since the accident, and I didn't want to just stand there awkwardly while he tried to make conversation. Before too long, he was out of my sight.

I sat through my first two classes without really paying attention. I had taught myself all of this already. Really, I was thinking about piano. I had taken a liking to the instrument after I came back. What had seemed pointless before was now a valuable way to pass the time. I devoured books of music. Every spare second I was at school was spent in the music room practicing.

The problem was that I had picked my classes before the accident, so I didn't pick music class. Now I was trying to get one of my teachers to let me drop their class for music. So far, no dice.

Eventually, lunch came around. I walked into the lunchroom, stumbling along the way. I was an extremely clumsy human.

I wasn't hungry-just thirsty-so I grabbed a bottle of water and went to sit down. No one tried to approach me. I just got out my book and my iPod and started to read. I was enjoying a particularly good piece of Debussy when I overheard Jessica asking Edward out. He declined.

I turned around to see him and noticed that it looked like he was stopping himself from laughing. I didn't know why until Jessica turned around. The expression on her face was probably the funniest thing I had ever seen. And I had no qualms with holding in my laughter.

I hid my mouth-as if anyone could see it through my hood-and giggled. It felt good. I hadn't laughed in a long time. Over the next few minutes, I was aware of Edward watching me. I could see in his eyes that he was trying to read me, and I laughed. It must be very frustrating. I was extremely hard to read. Multiple times, I stopped myself from waving teasingly in his direction. No. I didn't want to become entangled in anyone's life.

I went back to reading, but soon closed my book as I heard Lauren and her cronies coming up behind me. I got it in my bag just in time to be drenched with soda.

I glanced down at my shirt and-even though I had really good eyesight-I could barely see a stain. I started to laugh again and reached down to get my white board and marker. Writing quickly, I held up my one mean of communication.

**Seriously? We do this every lunch. You can't even tell you did anything. That's the magic of black. When are you going to realize that this accomplishes nothing?**

Lauren walked away in a huff that just made me laugh harder. I spent the rest of my lunch ignoring the eyes I felt boring into my back, and knowing they were Edward's.

I left slightly early so I could catch Mr. Banner. I knew it was a long shot, but I needed to ask every teacher about possible dropping their class. I found him walking out of the teacher's lounge.

**Hello Mr. Banner.**

"Hello Isabella." He replied. I flinched when he called me by my full name, but didn't let it bother me.

**I wanted to talk to you about something. **We were slowly walking towards class.** I have been learning how to play piano lately.**

"That's fine, but I fail to see what that has to do anything with Biology. Perhaps you'd like to talk to the _music_ teacher."

**No, you see. I don't have a music class. So, I was wondering if I could maybe switch Biology to music.**

"Are you asking for permission to drop my class?" The halls were empty now. We were almost to his class, but I was getting desperate. I only had one other class and I really wanted to take music.

**Please. Maybe you could give me all the work and I would do it at home.**

"No other child gets these special privileges. Why should you?" He was angry. We were almost to the door.

**No, you see…**

"I'm sorry Isabella." He interrupted me. "There can be no exceptions. You'll have to talk to Mrs. Muland later. You simply can't miss my class for some musical fantasy you somehow got stuck in your head."

I knew it was a losing battle, but I had to make one last plea.

**Please Mr. Banner? I could still keep up with my work. You could tell me what we covered and I would get all the homework done. I can't switch out any of my other classes, but I really want to play the piano with the band.**

"We've already discussed this, Ms. Swan. You are not allowed to skip my class under any circumstances. I don't care if you're a piano protégée. Now go take your seat before I lose my temper."

My anger washed up and consumed me. Ever since the accident, I had been having trouble controlling my emotions. I stalked to my seat before I could do anything I would regret.

I was so lost in thought that I didn't notice Edward at the front of the class until I was sitting down. In fact, it was his voice that alerted me to his presence.

"Excuse me. I'm Edward Cullen. I'm new here." He had a way with stating the obvious.

"Of course. I'll get you a book at the end of class. What did you study at your last school before you left?" I wonder why Mr. Banner sounded surprised.

For the next few minutes, he and Edward conversed in hushed tones while I looked on.

"You'll be sitting next to Ms. Swan. She's right there. She will be your lab partner for the rest of the year."

The mention of my name snapped me to attention. Edward would be sitting next to me? I felt my fingers tighten their grip on my white board and I had to focus in order to relax them. I would just have to ignore him. It wouldn't be that hard. I just couldn't let myself get involved. It would end badly.

"Hello. My name is Edward Cullen." And he immediately made ignoring him impossible.

**Why are you talking to me? **I was surprised at what I wrote. That wasn't what I was planning at all. But it was a valid question. Surely he had been informed of my less-than-satisfactory status in the high school food chain.

"Well, I am your lab partner. If we're going to be working together all year, I would hate to not get along with you." He had taken the wrong meaning of my words.

**Sorry, that came out wrong. I meant, why aren't you ignoring me like everyone else? **Ugh. Why was I being so nice? I needed to get him to leave me alone.

"Maybe I'm not like everyone else. Besides, I'm an outcast too. We should stick together." I was surprised he said that. Hanging out with him would be risky. Besides, why was I even considering it? I needed to keep my argument in my head or I might forget whose side I'm on.

**Did you ever consider that I like being a freak? Besides the occasional hot soup or drink dumped on you, no one really notices you. ** Okay, so that was…better. It still didn't get the point across.

"Why would you want to be ignored?"

**I think you're missing the point.**

"And what would that point be?" His voice was teasing. It made me sad to make the conversation serious again.

**Stay away from me. I'll work with you on our labs when it's needed. Other than that, I'd just like to be left alone. Go date Jessica or something. You certainly could become part of the 'in' crowd. I don't care, just leave me be.**

There. That was the sort of tone I was looking for. He needed to stay away. It wasn't safe to be around me.

He seemed shocked, and I laughed to think that it was probably the first time a girl had ever spoken to him like that. I watched in amusement as he tried to focus on the teacher. I had already studied this, and I could tell that he had too.

I let my thoughts drift for the rest of class. At times, I felt his eyes on me, and I tried to ignore it. He wasn't helping me think and I needed to.

Already, I could feel my need to be around someone who could understand me. Edward would be able to. His whole family would be able to, but I couldn't let them. It anyone got too close to me, they would figure me out. That would put them in danger, and I would not be responsible for another person's death. I had endangered enough people in my life.

But I could already feel the fight it was going to take to avoid the Cullens. It would be so easy to give in. It would be like falling. It was the same sort of feeling I had had months ago, once I was safe. It was the _need_ to return home. But just like that time, I had been unable to. It would hurt the people around me if I came back so soon. I had stayed away months longer than I could have, but it was all to keep them safe.

And yet, I had given in. It would have been safest to stay away until I died. To never some back to this small town. Yet I had to. Seven months had been the longest I could resist. I needed to be around familiar faces. And I felt it every day. I felt the pain that came with my decision. If I had stayed away, no one would be in danger. I wouldn't have to lie in bed at night and wonder if this would be the last time I would hear Charlie's snores.

But now I was too weak to leave. Now that I had tasted what it would be like to live a relatively normal life, I couldn't go back to the way I had been before. I was so selfish.

So this is how I would make up for that. I may not be able to leave, but I would ignore the Cullens. I would not drag anyone else into my messed up excuse for a life. I would not give in this time. No. I would save these people's lives, even if I could protect no one else. I would save them. There was no way to atone for the deaths I had already caused, but I could try.

I would spend my whole life trying.

Just then, the bell rang. I felt physical pain as I forced myself to run out of the room, away from Edward. I fought with all I had. I could do this. For Charlie. For Angela. For Edward. For the Cullens. For the people of Forks.

I focused on the image of the mop to keep from thinking about anything else. Back and forth. Back and forth. The wet floor shone with reflected light after I went over it.

I was in an old warehouse. This was one of my after school jobs. I was a janitor for both.

Immediately after school, I had gotten in my truck and drove to a school in Port Angeles. After cleaning up there, I went home, made Charlie dinner, and headed to my other job.

I would be working until nine, just like every night.

It was the only way I would be able to pay for anything after high school. If I wanted to go to college, buy a car, or even move away, I would have to work. Charlie had spent almost every dime he had on campaigns to find me when I had gone missing. I always felt guilty for that. I could have come home months earlier. Of course, Charlie would probably be dead by now if I had.

But no, I wasn't going to think about that. Once again, I focused on the mop's rhythm to drown out any thoughts I had. It was a trick I had learned on my travels.

Back and forth. Back and forth. The mind numbingly monotonous work was at the forfront of my brain. Sadly, I still had plenty of room to think behind it.

I tried to make it the only thing I thought about. I envisioned the pattern as a phiscal object; a sort of paint. Slowly, I pushed it back into every crevice of my mind. No thoughts could escape the pattern. It was all there was.

Sometimes, when I was lying in bed, awake, I would envision this mop. I would do the same thing I was doing now. It was the closest I ever got to being asleep without actually being asleep.

It was essential to blocking out the memories.

When you had lived through what I had, you needed some sort of meditation technique that allowed you to exist without ever feeling anything. It's what I found so calming about being a janitor. I had a six hour window when I could completely zone out, and no one would think any less of me for it, because no one was there.

Back and forth. Back and forth.

I moved like a machine. My movements were as jerky as they got and automatic. I didn't think at all until I was aware that I had stopped mopping. Glancing around the room, I saw that I was finished for the night.

I got in my car and drove home, paying little to no attention to the road.

"Hey Bells. How was school?" Charlie was watching TV when I came in, but he stopped to greet me.

I looked around and realized that I didn't have my white board, so I just gave him a thumbs-up. Let him make what he wanted out of it. Then I pointed upstairs to let him know I was going to turn in for the night. He nodded to say he understood and I tromped up the stairs to my room, tripping on the top step.

I took off my sweatshirt and jeans and was once again reduced to the long-sleeved shirt, gloves, leggings, and socks that I always wore. They were cream colored and skintight. I let my hair out of its ponytail and felt it bounce around my shoulders. I knew I was pretty. That was one of the reasons I covered up all my skin.

I pulled my laptop onto the bed beside me and opened up to my class. I was taking a college-level literature course. Almost all the money I was making from my jobs went to pay for this, but it was worth it. The extra work left me with almost no time to think.

I worked for the next few hours, disturbed only by the occasional bushing of the tree outside against my window. I didn't let it distract me too much. In fact, it wasn't until four thirty that I heard Charlie getting up and knew I should try to sleep.

I pulled the covers over me and felt my pulse start to slow. I tried to clear my mind, but found that all I could think of was the feeling I had gotten while sitting next to Edward. I felt the need to be with his family just as strongly as I had while sitting next to him. If anything, it was getting worse.

I'd never experienced anything like this before. It confused me. It had hurt to say goodbye to Angela, but it had been necessary, so I had been able to talk myself through it. If I hadn't, Angela would almost defiantly be dead now.

So why couldn't I just convince myself that I had to avoid the Cullens to protect them, feel the pain that would come with it, and move on? I knew there was something different about them, but they still seemed human, so no difference could be that big. I should be able to just talk myself out of it like I did with everyone else.

But I knew I was lying to myself. The Cullens might seem like everyone else, but there were many subtle differences that I had caught. No, they weren't normal, and even though they seemed human enough, I couldn't even take heart in that.

Because something told me they weren't.

**A/N: So that was a good follow up chapter right? It's funny to write this, because I can imagine just how confused you're getting right now, when really, I laid out all the clues for you. If you really want to, you could go back and try to figure out Bella's secret. There'll be more clues as we go along. Let's see if you can find it out before Edward.**

**Also, I gave you this chapter as a present to apologize for what I'm about to say. I have a family reunion coming up and I won't be able to update for a while. I won't even have access to a computer! sob**

**Hopefully, I should be able to get up another chapter by this time next week though, so don't be too sad!**

**~school-is-my-purgatory.**


	3. Chapter 3

EPOV

I spent my whole night in my room listening to my music. Right now, I was agitated and you could tell through my choice in music. I had felt a strange draw to the girl all through Biology. It was like nothing I had ever felt before. It surprised me how rude she had been.

While the fact that she hadn't been affected by my vampiric charms had baffled me, that wasn't what I was stuck on now. She had practically yelled at me through writing. I wasn't offended, it was just the first time a someone had been able to do that since I was changed. Humans were intimidated by us and couldn't even manage to yell at Alice.

Yet the girl had looked fearlessly at me as she had yelled. It enforced my earlier theory of her not being human. The only problem was, I had no idea what else she could be. Her scent was entirely unordinary except for the slightly better smell. It had none of the repelling, woodsy smell of a werewolf, nor the pleasant, perfume of a vampire.

I had narrowed it down to a list, but each possibility had a world of problems with it.

First, she could be a werewolf like the ones in La Push. The problems were that she wasn't native; she didn't have the blood running through her, she didn't smell like it, she wasn't tall enough, and she didn't seem to shake when she was angry.

Second, she could be a vampire. Only, her heart was beating, she smelled appetizing, she was clumsy, she wouldn't be able to control herself, and she had body heat. I had felt it when sitting next to her or picking up her books.

Thirdly, she could be a human. Really, there wasn't anything standing against this theory besides the fact that something told me she wasn't one.

I looked down at the list. I had written it down to help organize my thoughts. Now that I looked, I felt foolish. There was nothing to say that she wasn't just an overly bold human. She had simply gotten unlucky. Maybe she had been so bold because she had gone through a terrible trial during her disappearance. It really was the only thing that made sense. I sat back in my couch, trying to convince myself of the only logical explanation.

She was just an odd human. Of course, her past would explain the mature outlook she had on life.

"Time for school Edward!" Alice called up. I pushed myself off the couch and ran down to where my family was waiting. I needed proof that I wasn't insane. I had to prove, at least to myself, that Bella wasn't a human. I would be watching her like a hawk all day.

Jasper looked at me oddly out of the corner of his eye. _What's up with you? This is the first time since I've known you that you've been excited to go to school._

I nodded in his direction to confirm that he was right, but offered no further explanation. I wasn't ready to explain my strange fascination with the new girl. If I told my family, it would soon fascinate them too. I wasn't ready to let the rest of them in on my secret.

We climbed in the car and I drove off. The rest of my family went inside as we arrived, but I stayed in the parking lot. Alice shot a glance at me just before she went through the doors, and I had a feeling she was hiding something. My suspicions were proved correct when I looked into her head and found her translating the original Sherlock Holmes books into German.

She smirked and slipped inside. Her mind was lost for a second in the babble of the other minds, and I didn't bother to find it again. I had just heard the monstrous roar of the girl's truck coming around the corner. I think I would die if I had to drive in a car that slow.

Eventually, it pulled into a parking space and she cut the engine. I watched as she stumbled out and once again noticed her clumsiness. I had never met another 'mythical creature' that wasn't graceful. Of course, there was a first time for everything, but it would make it extremely hard to hunt or run fast if you were clumsy.

But she _couldn't _be human. It didn't match up.

_You're just afraid to lose your new obsession._ A voice in my head said. I admitted that it was probably right. While I was still fascinated by her silent mind, it wasn't nearly as interesting as the idea of her being something other than a human. Sadly, there wasn't any other explanation. The girl hobbled into the main building and it wasn't until the warning bell rang that I realized how long I had been standing there.

But I really needed to stop thinking of her as _the _girl. As if she were the only girl in the world. No, she was Bella Swan, and that was how I would address her. She was a person, if not entirely human.

I headed into the building and stopped at my locker before heading to my first period.

Once again, classes crawled by. The difference was that now, I spent my time watching the girl through other's minds. It seemed like no one talked to her. In fact, no one even seemed to like her. I watched through Angela's –the only decent person at this school-whenever I could. Not only did she have a pleasant mind to listen to, but she also knew what Bella had been like before she went missing.

Occasionally, she would compare Bella to what she had once been like, and I would get a flash of a normal-looking girl with waist-length hair and pale skin. Her brown eyes were surprisingly deep. What really shocked me was that in most of the memories, Bella was either smiling or laughing. She seemed like a generally happy person.

And she had been odd even then. According to Angela, she had been amazingly selfless. Aside from that, she had been kind, brave, and caring. She would do anything for anyone even if it made her life miserable.

That was why Angela had been so surprised when Bella had told her that she didn't want to hang out with her any more. Bella would have normally hung out with her even if she hadn't wanted to, just because she would have known that Angela wanted to be her friend.

The difference between Bella now and the way Bella had been was startling. It made me sad to think of how much must have occurred to change her so much. But this made me think that maybe she remembered more than she let on. While forgetting a whole seven months of your life would change you, it wouldn't change you that much. She must know what had happened to have such irrevocable damage done.

Eventually, lunch rolled around. I looked forward to seeing Bella with my own eyes now. I wanted to see what she was eating and how much.

But when I walked into the cafeteria, she wasn't there. I sat down with my family and waited for her to arrive, but when she was still gone after fifteen minutes, I went to look for her. I walked up and down the hallways. She wasn't at Biology, and she wasn't in her class before lunch. No one populated the halls, and so no one was bullying her or anything. I was just peaking into all the empty classes when I heard it.

A soft melody was drifting down the hall. It was a heart wrenching tune; full of pain and struggle. I was sure that I had never heard it before. I ghosted down the corridor, trying to find the source of the music. Eventually, I found the door to the music room. Opening the door, I saw a large, black piano that was probably as old as I was. It wasn't in the best condition, and had probably been donated to the school.

Seated at the piano was a figure dressed all in black. For a second, I didn't realize it was Bella. Something about the way she was sitting and playing made her seem exposed and vulnerable. She seemed more like the Bella in Angela's memories.

Apparently, she hadn't noticed me yet. I knew how that was. I could play for hours without realizing that Esme was in the room. Her eyes were closed, and her body was softly swaying to the music.

I paid more attention to the melody and felt like I was getting a glimpse into Bella's mind for the first time. The melody still had the main themes of pain and struggle, but underneath that wove a sting of resolution and determination. Behind all of that, there was a tremulous tune that was hardly noticeable and sometimes disappears, yet indicated that there was still a reason to be glad, despite what she was going through.

It was simple, yet more beautiful than anything I had ever written. I remembered Bella and Mr. Banner's argument the other day, and realized that Bella was only learning piano. She had amazing skill at just showing her emotions through music and I knew that if she kept up with this, she would soon be a master.

"Did you write that?" I asked. She jumped and I immediately cursed myself for interrupting and causing her to stop playing.

Her eyes set upon me, and for a moment they were wild with fear. It was soon gone though, and I wondered if I had imagined it. Then she stood up and walked over to a table pushed against the wall. It had her white board on it.

"**What are you doing here?" **Her eyes were blazing now. I could tell that I had unwittingly angered her by walking in on her playing.

"I heard your song. I wanted to see who was playing. You're very good."

**Look, I don't know what you didn't get about our conversation yesterday, but let me reiterate. I don't want you to come any where near me. I want you to back away and just leave me alone like everyone else. That includes walking in on me practicing piano.**

"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you."

**But you did once you opened the door. You could have just walked back out. In fact, it's better late than never. Go ahead and walk out now. Please, this is the only chance I get to play. Just let me be.**

I shied away from her overpowering anger. Recognizing a lost cause, I backed out of the room with my hands up. Sadly, as soon as the door closed behind me, the bell rang. I heard Bella give a scream of anger and hurried to class before she opened up the door and found me there.

I walked to my seat and was soon joined by Bella. I was expecting more towering fury, but now she seemed to be more regretful and embarrassed than anything. I also saw the same determination I had felt in her song in her eyes. She sat with her back ramrod straight and stared at the teacher for all of class.

What I wouldn't give to be able to read her mind! It was frustrating. I focused the most I had since I was changed and prodded at the place where her mind should be with my brain. It seemed like she wasn't even there.

The bell rang again and I wondered at how time flew whenever Bella was around. I was one of the first out of the room and hurried to Spanish. Even so, my mind was once again following Angela's as she walked to gym, Bella's next class. I stepped out of her mind as she went into the locker room and waited a good ten minutes before coming back.

I then proceeded to watch Bella stumble her way through volleyball, taking several people down with her and hitting herself on the head several times. This further disproved my first two theories. There was no way she was a predator of any kind. It simply didn't match up.

Eventually, that class ended too and I headed out to the car to wait for my family and to watch for Bella. I didn't have to wait long

She came out first and hobbled over to her car. She almost fell in a puddle before getting in, but she caught herself on the side-mirror. I stifled a chuckle at that, and her back stiffened. For a second, I thought it was because she heard me, but then I saw Lauren walking up behind her. Bella must have caught her reflection in the puddle.

Slowly, she turned around. I watched with bated breath as I saw what Lauren had in her mind.

"Having trouble keeping your balance, Swan?" She teased, trying to get a rise out of Bella. It was extremely immature, yet it would have worked on anyone at this school but Bella. She just ignored Lauren and opened the door to get in her truck.

Lauren wasn't having that, so she skipped a few steps of her plan and just employed the end. Reaching out, she shoved Bella down, right towards the puddle. I watched as Bella flailed her arms and then landed right in the center of the puddle. Water splashed up around her and soaked her through. I had thought that would get to her, but she simply stood up, brushed her hands over her clothes as if to wipe the water off, and stepped into her truck.

I felt a strange pull that lessened when I drove out of the parking lot, but increased more and more the further from her I got. But I would not follow her. She was a lady, and I would not invade her privacy by becoming her very own freaky vampire stalker.

Every day, the pull to follow Bella got stronger and stronger, yet still I resisted. I would go to school, watch her through other's minds, and then go home and wait for the next day to come. Lunch was spent standing outside the music room and listening to Bella without being seen.

It seemed like all her music had a common trend. It was always filled with determination and pain. Over time, the happy undertone became nonexistent and the determination seemed to be wavering. Every song was filled with desperation and struggle. I wondered if I should get Bella to go see the guidance counselor. It seemed like she was going through a giant struggle. The only problem with that was that I would have to reveal that I was listening to her play.

I had been unable to keep my infatuation with Bella a secret for more than a week. My family was extremely observant, and Alice kept seeing my decision to go see Bella just before I changed my mind. At first, they were amused, and I was on the receiving end of ceaseless teasing from Emmett, but eventually, they became bored of it all.

I had thought that they would want to help me find out what Bella was, but I couldn't blame them for losing interest. Bella honestly seemed like just a strange human. She didn't eat the cafeteria food, but neither did half the school's population. In fact, every odd thing about her pointed away from her being a mythical creature of any kind.

And so the days turned into weeks, and the weeks turned into a month before anything happened.

At first, it was just a normal day, but after school was over, the pull to follow Bella was stronger than it had ever been. I was already tired from being followed around all day by Jessica. I was in no mood to fight the exhausting battle that avoiding Bella had become. I had just made the decision when Alice skipped up.

"Have fun." She sang as she held out her hand for the keys. I placed them in her hand and ran off into the woods when no one was looking. Standing behind a tree, I waited until Bella left the parking lot. Then, I ran a parallel to her car.

I was expecting her to go home, but she started to leave the city instead. Confused, I continued to run after her. What was she doing? My question was soon answered when she pulled up outside a high school and went in. Instead of using the front door, she pulled a key ring from her pocket an entered through a staff entrance around back.

I ran around to a window rather than follow her in. She went into a closet and came out with a janitor's cart. She had a job as a janitor?

The answer to my question was made quite obvious. She spent the next two hours cleaning up the school and mopping the floors. It seemed like she wasn't even there the whole time. She was moving, but her eyes were unfocused and her movements were jerky and automatic.

Eventually she finished and we were off again. She sped back down the road and pulled up in front of her house. I watched her walk in and watched through a window as she made a quick dinner. This, she scooped onto one plate and then set on the table. It was then back out the to the truck. She drove for a while and pulled up in front of an old warehouse.

She went through the same steps as at the school and then started to mop. She wasn't done until nine that night.

I wondered at the fact that she could work like that and not get bored or tired. Why did she even have to work like this anyway? The more I watched Bella, the more confusing she became.

Finally, she finished that too and drove back home. Her father gave her a hug as she walked through the door. He asked her how her day was and I watched through his mind as she gave a positive answer. She then headed upstairs and sat on her bed with a laptop on her lap. Apparently, this was normal behavior.

For hours after that, Bella sat there working on her laptop. Once, she got up to get ready for bed. She set her computer so that I could see it. She was taking an online college course? None of this made any sense. Bella was living so many different lives. She was a janitor, a high school student, and a college student. Was there anything I knew about her?

When she came back in, she was still wearing her black sweatshirt and pants. She took one look at the laptop and snatched it up, turning so that I could no longer see it. Then she continued to work for a few more hours. In fact, she didn't stop working until I heard the sound of her father's alarm clock going off in the early hours of morning before dawn. Then she snapped the laptop closed, crawled into her bed and lay still.

It seemed improbable that she could ever fall asleep that fast, but her slowed breathing and heartbeat told that it was such. I watched her lay there for a few minutes until the storm started. A sudden roll of thunder caused her to jerk awake. Startled, I ran back into the cover of the forest. I was about to leave when her window slid open.

I watched, baffled, as Bella slipped out her window and climbed out onto the roof. Rain was pouring down around her and there was thunder and lightning. Did she have a death wish?

Just as the thought came to me, a flash of lightning shot down and hit Bella. For a second, she just stood there. I gasped and held in a yell. Suddenly, her heart started to beat wildly and her eyes rolled back. Her knees buckled and she collapsed forward off the roof. I ran and caught her milliseconds before she hit the ground. I didn't have time to worry about the bruises I would probably cause her.

Her eyes opened and she seemed to take some relief in my presence. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

_In Case of Medical Emergency._

_Call: ###.####_

_Before anyone speaks, say the word 'Everest'. It tells them that I have an emergency._

_They are my special doctors in La Push. I have an extreme medical condition and cannot be taken anywhere but there._

_Thank you, whoever you are._

I knew it would be a problem getting her to La Push-Carlisle had renewed the treaty the day before my family arrived, there was a new pack-, but I couldn't worry about that now. I took out my cell phone and called the number listed.

"Everest." I said, before whoever picked up could get a word in edgewise.

_Is Bella okay? _ A voice on the other line demanded.

"No, she got struck by lightning just now and fell off her roof. I was walking by and caught her before she hit the ground. She's barely conscious."

_Bring her here. I can give you our address._

"I'm afraid that won't work. I don't believe I told you my name yet. Hello, I'm Edward Cullen."

For a second, there was silence on the end. Then, _Hello, I'm Sam Uley. _Ah, he was the new werewolf. At least I wouldn't have to explain anything. _Just carry her to the treaty line and I can take her from there. I work as a volunteer for the doctor here._

I picked her up and ran in the direction of the treaty line. Looking down, I saw that her clothes were soaked through with not only water, but blood as well. Did people bleed from getting hit by lightning? I didn't have time to think about that. Within seconds I was standing in front of an invisible line, handing Bella over to a boy that had shown up as a wolf.

Just as she left my hands, I heard her heart sputter and then stop. I exchanged a panicked glance with Sam, and then she was being spirited away from me. I wondered why I was so worried about her. Was I just concerned that the source of my obsession was hurt? It seemed to go deeper than that.

But, if I didn't know anything else about lightning strikes, I knew that they took days to heal. It would be pointless to stand at the treaty line, waiting for Bella to come back. I would have to go to school soon anyway. I wondered if I should call her father, but figured the doctor would do it.

So I turned back around and headed home. Alice was waiting for me.

_I'm so sorry, Edward. I saw it just before it happened. I wouldn't have been able to warn you. Plus, I can't see the werewolves, so I won't be able to check on her, but she'll be back at school in a week._

I sighed and headed upstairs. It wasn't Alice's fault, but I really wanted to see Bella again. I tried to convince myself that it was just because I wanted to figure her out, but I was now almost sure that it wasn't just that.

I had never felt this way before. It seemed so odd that I would want to be around any human this much. I had never taken any notice of a particular human until now. It seemed like I spent more time think about Bella than I spent thinking about my family.

I sighed again and changed into the clothes that Alice had laid out for me. The rest of my family was waiting for me downstairs. Emmett was laughing at me in his head, Jasper was confused, Alice was still hiding something, and Rose was fuming. Apparently, Alice had told them where I was last night. Rose started to yell at me almost immediately.

_You idiot! What were you thinking? You need to get it in your head that she's just a human. It's dangerous for you to be around her. You need to move on. If I didn't know any better, I'd say…_

Just then, Alice started to shake her head vigorously. Rose flashed her eyes to her and then her mouth dropped open. Suddenly, she too was blocking her mind from me. Great, now two people were in on some secret that involved me. I was about to complain when I saw the look on Rose's face. Her eyes were blazing and her mouth was set in a grim line. I could tell it was taking everything she had to not rip my head off right then.

I slipped around her and went into the garage before she could start anything. She wouldn't risk hurting any of her cars.

I got into the Volvo and waited for the rest of my family to come out. Rose was last and sat as far away from me as she could. What had I done wrong? I could see how she could be mad at me for following Bella, but it couldn't be worth that much fury. I hadn't given anything away. There was no reason for Bella to be suspicious of me.

But what if she had seen how fast I was running when I took her to the treaty line. No, she would probably pass it off as going into shock. Besides, I doubted that Alice would have told the rest of the family that she might have seen. But maybe that was what Rosalie had figured out. It all matched up.

Except that it didn't explain why she would block her thoughts. Normally, if she figured out something like that, she would be bombarding me with her malicious thoughts. It must be the same thing that Alice had been hiding from me for the last month.

But I knew I wouldn't get anywhere just thinking in circles. I would just have to wait for Alice to slip up. Sitting back in the seat, I started up the car and drove forward to the boring monotony that was school without Bella.

**A/N: Okay, so a lot happened in this chapter. I hope the fact that I didn't leave you on a cliffy and that so much happened makes up for how long it took me to update. I'd like to dedicate this chapter to ForeverShel for all her awesome reviews. I wasn't sure if I would update today, but her reviews made me laugh, so I figured what the heck.**

**Anyway, I'm rambling. Just one more question, do you want to figure out what Bella is in the next chapter, or do you want to figure out when Edward does? Tell me in a review. I won't update till I know!**

**-school-is-my-purgatory**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Okay, so everyone who commented on whether or not you should figure out what Bella was in this chapter was either impartial, or begging me to tell you in this chapter. Normally, this would have made me **_**not **_**tell you all, but I already had some written, so I figured, why not?**

**So there you go everyone. The grand reveal is in this chapter.**

**Sorry about how much thinking will be going on in this chapter. Everyone always says that Edward over thinks things, but Bella's past and the fact that she never actually talks makes her think a whole lot too. So sorry about that, hope you like the chapter anyway.**

BPOV

I got up the next morning and ran downstairs. I was late. I didn't have time to eat or anything. I just ran outside and hopped in my truck.

The whole drive was spent steeling myself. I would not allow myself to look at or have contact with any of the Cullens. Especially Edward. I was ready by the time I pulled up. Noticing Edward standing by his car, I stumbled out of my truck and didn't allow myself to look in his direction again.

The whole day it felt like Edward was watching me. I could feel his eyes through Angela. It scared me. But maybe I was just being paranoid.

When lunch came around, I didn't bother with the cafeteria. I went straight to the music room. Once again, I felt the physical pain that came with walking away from the Cullens. Would it ever go away?

Not bothering to ignore it, instead, I let it flood my head as I sat down at the piano. I thought of how hard it was to ignore them. I thought of the pain that came with just existing. As I played, I allowed my resolve to harden. I _would_ avoid the Cullens. I would not let them be in danger like everyone else near me. I let that become an undercurrent to the pain in my song.

Then I thought of all the good things that came with my disappearance. I appreciated the beauty in the world like I never had before. I learned to treasure life in general. I allowed that to tread in and out, underneath the song. Every now and then, I would forget about the good, and it would disappear under the pain and saddness.

The resulting song was much more simple than I would have liked. I knew I could get much better if I had more time to practice, but none of my teachers would allow me to cut their class. Honestly, I wasn't very surprised. I had just been hoping for better results than I got. Now, not only did I not get to study music, but almost all my teachers were mad at me.

I lost myself in the music for a while. In fact, I would have remained like that until the bell rang had I not been interrupted.

"Did you write that?" An all too familiar voice asked. I turned around to face Edward, already anticipating the pain that would come with being rude to possibly the only person who would understand me.

He was staring at me, and I felt an odd thrill at that knowledge. I tried to ignore it. Besides, I was sort of mad at him anyway. I asked him to leave me alone! He was making avoiding him impossible. Besides, I hated to have anyone listen to me while I was playing. What right did he have to come in here? He was supposed to be at lunch.

I got up and picked up my white board.

**What are you doing here? **I felt my eyes blaze and once again focused to keep my anger in check. I would not make some foolish mistake that I would regret later.

"I heard your song. I wanted to see who was playing. You're very good." Ugh. He was just being nice. I could tell he was telling the truth. No, I was still mad at him.

**Look, I don't know what you didn't get about our conversation yesterday, but let me reiterate. I don't want you to come any where near me. I want you to back away and just leave me alone like everyone else. That includes walking in on me practicing piano.**

Okay, so you couldn't tell I was wavering by what I wrote. Unlike yesterday, I had control over what I was writing on my board.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you."

**But you did once you opened the door. You could have just walked back out. In fact, it's better late than never. Go ahead and walk out now. Please, this is the only chance I get to play. Just let me be.**

I felt bad for being so mean to him, but I only did it to protect him. Besides, even though part of me was guilty, most of me was so mad at him, I could spit. I knew it was unreasonable, but I had become an amazingly private person as of late.

He backed out of the room with his hands up, but I didn't hear any footsteps moving down the hall. He must be waiting outside the room. Honestly, I didn't want another encounter with him. I was about to go tell him to leave, but the bell rang almost immediately. Would I ever get a chance to play? Lunch was the only time I got to play, and now Edward was ruining that.

I gave a scream of anger and heard Edward run off. That made me smile. Apparently, he was scared to face my anger again. Unfortunately, the anger was all but gone by now. It would be hard to work myself up again too. I would just have to hope that his fear would keep him from talking to me. Something told me that it still wouldn't work.

When I got to Biology, Edward was already sitting there. By now, I was just embarrassed by my earlier behavior. Still, I watched the teacher all class, keeping my mind blank and forcing myself to ignore the person sitting next to me.

He made it even harder than it needed to be by staring at me all class. I could practically feel his eyes trying to burn a hole in my head.

Eventually, the bell rang and he was the first one out this time. I waited until everyone else had left before following.

Gym was tortuous. We were playing volleyball and I had no responsibility for my limbs as they took out many people. The ball flew every which way and I somehow managed to hit myself on the head multiple times. Finally, it was over, and I was allowed to go back out to my car. I had fought with the gym teachers for hours until they had allowed me to play in my sweatshirt and pants.

Somehow, Edward had beaten me to the parking lot. I was hyper-aware of him as I stumbled to my car. I tripped, but caught myself on the side-mirror. Surprisingly, it didn't break off. I was just about to open the door when I heard a sound. I looked in the puddle and saw that Lauren was coming up behind me. Great. She was definitely planning something.

I turned around and saw the malicious smirk on her face. Without a doubt, she would want to have a conversation. I reached for my whiteboard.

"Having trouble keeping your balance, Swan?" She teased. Wow. That was the worst insult I had ever heard. I ignored her and opened my door.

Apparently, that wasn't part of her plan. She reached out and shoved against me. Honestly, I had seen it coming and had enough time to move away but I knew that would just increase my troubles tenfold. So, I allowed myself to fall back into the puddle and felt the freezing water seep up into my clothes. Lauren walked away and I pulled myself back up. Pointlessly, I ran my hands over my clothes and then got in my car.

The next month flew by. Every day, it hurt more and more. My life was practically a living hell. Instead of growing used to the pain, it just got worse and worse. Yet, at the same time, my life was monotony. I went about school, spending every lunch playing piano with Edward listening outside the door. I had practically forgotten that anything good existed in the world, and it was reflected in my songs.

Edward's presence followed me, and I felt his eyes on me even when we were miles apart. My work didn't even let me escape from the constant pain. It followed me everywhere.

It all changed after school one day when I felt Edward's presence even more than normal. I had trouble focusing on work and it took much longer than it usually did. My class, too, went slower. It wasn't until Charlie woke up that I crawled into bed.

In a minute, I was up again because of a huge storm going on outside. I had always loved storms, so I didn't think twice about stepping out onto the roof. I didn't feel watched anymore, so it felt natural.

I sat there for a while, just enjoying the power of the storm. I had just stood up when a flash lit up my vision. For a second, I was blind. An electrical current ran up and down me, but somewhere through it all, I heard a gasp.

My heart flew and before I could do anything else, my knees buckled. I felt myself falling. Moments before I hit the ground, I felt a pair of cold arms catch me. Looking up, I saw Edward. Great.

But no, now wasn't the time to look a gift horse in the mouth. I reached into my pocket for the paper I kept there in case of an emergency. Handing it to Edward, I waited for him to read it and then make the call to my doctor.

After that, he took off. The speed with which we traveled was amazing, and it proved that Edward wasn't human. I don't think he realized that I was fully conscious. He stopped at some invisible line, and then a giant wolf was suddenly there. I think that I would have been terrified under different circumstances. The wolf went back in the trees and then there was a boy in his place. Without question, I was transferred to his arms. He took off running, not as fast as Edward, but faster than a human should be able to.

Within seconds of the transfer, I felt my heart stop. My eyes drooped closed.

It wasn't until we had gone a good three miles that I burst out laughing. Sam looked down at me and then smiled.

"It's safe?" He was referring to Edward's mind reading of course.

"Yup. Gosh it's good to be talking again." I chuckled and pulled my hood off my head. "Um, can you put me down now? I can walk just fine."

"Well, I had to be sure we were out of his range. You got blood all over me!"

I looked at him and, sure enough, he was covered in blood. I stuck out my tongue. "Ugh. At least I'm used to the smell. It's going to take forever to fix this. It shorted out when the lightning struck."

"Oh yeah. About that, do you want to explain exactly what you were doing getting hit by lightning, and why Edward _Cullen _was the one to call in your emergency?"

"Do you want the short story or the long story?"

"Might as well tell the long story if I'm stuck in this form anyway. Does it bother you to walk so slow?"

"Actually, this is the fastest I've gotten to walk in a long time. It feels good." And I was telling the truth. I had been stuck to measly human pace for the last few months. Even walking at the same speed as a werewolf in human form was a relief.

I had known Sam for years. He and I had been best friends since before the accident. I was there the first time he changed into a wolf. We had been sitting at his house and he had lost a video game to me. It seemed like such an insignificant thing, but he had blown up about it, literally. At first, he had tried to attack me. I still had a thin scar on my side, but I had been able to knock some sense into him before it got bad. And so I had been let in on the secret at the same time he had been.

There had never been any romantic interest between us. He was two years older than me. As the rest of the pack had changed, I had become the pack mom, along with Emily. The people of La Push all knew what had happened to me. It was the only way they would have let me hang out there again.

Bringing myself back to the present, I began retelling my day.

"Anyway, I'll have you know that I have tried my best to avoid the Cullens. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done too. From the day they arrived, I was nothing but rude to them. I told them to leave me alone every chance I had. But the mind reader wouldn't leave me alone.

"For the last month he's been pretty good, but he always listens to me when I'm practicing and is constantly watching me through others minds. That was, until today.

"He followed me out of the parking lot and to both my jobs. When I got home, he sat outside my window and watched me work on my class. It was so annoying. I couldn't change out of my overly large shirt and pants. Besides, when I left to 'get ready for bed', I accidentally left my laptop so he could see what I was working on.

"Eventually, I went to bed, but then a storm started, and you know how much I love them. I looked around and thought he was gone, so I went out onto the roof. I had just got struck by lightning when I heard him gasp and this stupid machine shorted out. I had to pretend to faint and fall. Of course, he caught me, I gave him the paper, and he took me here."

I looked up and laughed again when I saw the expression on Sam's face. He took a minute to process everything. See? This is why I don't talk in public. I always slip up and say too much, too fast.

"Okay, I think I've got it." he finally said. "Come on, the house is not far away. Let's get you changed out of those terrible clothes you insist on wearing."

"Oh come on Sam. You know that these clothes were the only thing that kept anyone at school or home from finding out." He rolled his eyes, but nodded.

"I know, but Emily practically has a fit every time you walk through her door dressed like that." He smiled fondly at the mention of his imprint, and I looked on, happy he had found someone, but a little jealous too. I had never found anyone like he had.

"Well then we better get there fast. The sooner I get you back to her, the happier she'll be. Do you mind shifting so we can run faster?"

"Not at all." He went back behind a bush and I turned my back. Soon, I was flying through the trees with a black, oversized wolf running next to me. We reached Emily's house in minutes and I ran inside to give her a hug.

"Ah, Bella. It's been too long since you visited. The pack grew. I have to do all the cooking now."

"I'm sorry Emily. You know how busy I am." She smiled at me and then pulled back. Her shirt was covered in blood.

"And why are you soaked in blood?" she raised an eyebrow, attempting to look motherly.

"It wasn't my fault. All that happened was I got stuck by lightning and this stupid thing shorted out." I reached in my pocket to grab the little machine there, but only got it out a few inches before I felt it tugging on all the cords it was attached to that ran through my clothes.

"Oh. Well that's okay. You'll be here for a week, at least. Besides, maybe this time you could upgrade it. Maybe you could cover it in rubber or something so that doesn't happen again. Of course, you'll have to take off the cords so I can wash your clothes…"

"Emily!" her head snapped up. "You were rambling again."

"Oh, right. Here, let me get you a change of clothes that actually goes with your skin tone. After that, I'll let Sam call the pack and we can make a giant breakfast. Of course, that will be after he calls the school and tells them that you were struck by lightning." At that, Sam jumped up while Emily led me to her closet despite my protests.

Once there, she handed me a short-sleeved blue shirt and some skinny jeans. They were both my size.

"Emily, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you went shopping for me." I hinted, as I pulled off the encasing clothes I wore under everything and put on the new clothes. She smiled distantly, and then we sat down to disentangle all the cords in my clothes.

"You'd think you'd make these a little easier to take out." She complained, after we'd been at it for an hour and were still only halfway done.

"The harder it is to take them out, the more natural I look when they're on." I replied. It was something Emily had said first. I was throwing her words back at her.

"That's cheating and you know it." She replied. I noticed that she still wasn't all there. Apparently, there was something on her mind.

"Come on. What are you thinking about?" I prodded. We were like sisters and rarely hid anything from each other. The fact that she hadn't mentioned it yet ensured that it was something big. Luckily, that was all the encouragement she needed.

"Why didn't you tell me you were in love?"

If there had been anything in my mouth at the moment, it would have warranted a serious spit-take.

"What?" I sputtered. It felt like the breath had been knocked out of me.

"Oh, come on. There's no way you can hide it. Whoever he is, he's already changed you so much." I was sure my face was full of scathing disbelief. "You don't believe me. I can see that much, but are you aware that you're smiling? As far as I know, that's your first one since the attack, but I'd bet you've been doing a lot of smiling lately."

I searched my face for the betraying smile and soon felt it. I tried to rearrange it into, well, anything, but it wouldn't go away. Emily laughed.

"See what I mean? You didn't even know you were smiling. But apparently, I've spoken too soon. It seems like you were clueless to the fact that you fell. Oh well, who is he anyway?"

My thoughts were in the middle of a train wreck at the moment. I had known that I was attracted to Edward, but was I in love with him? I'd never even had a real conversation with the boy, yet there was no denying that he was the only boy it could be. No other person occupied my every though, or even a tenth of them.

Was Emily just plain wrong? I did have trouble focusing around Edward, and I have a much harder time avoiding him and his family than everyone else put together…times one hundred.

So was that my answer? Was I honestly in love with Edward Cullen? I thought of how I had considered leaving in the past month. It had seemed like the easiest way to avoid the Cullens. I had always told myself that the pain that accompanied that thought was brought on by the idea of leaving Charlie. Was it really because I wanted to be with Edward?

It seemed like there was only one real answer to that question.

Yes. I was in love with Edward Cullen. I had never really spoken to him. I didn't know what his middle name was, or what his favorite color was, or how old he was, or his favorite animal, or how fast he could run-though those now seemed like very important things-and I was hopelessly, madly, irrevocably, head-over-heels in love with him.

I felt the instant relief that came with that epiphany. I felt the smile on my face widen to impossible proportions and felt giddy with the flood of suppressed emotions that drowned me. For a while, I just sat there, letting them run over me. It felt like a cool spring rain in the middle of a drought. I had needed this.

And then I was up and twirling around in a circle, holding hands with Emily, and laughing for no reason other than being happy. Emily laughed and spun with me, and her eyes were glowing. Now that I wasn't so busy being depressed, I could see that she had been worried about me. She had noticed my jealousy when she was with Sam, but didn't think I would be able to find love.

Eventually, she had to stop. I flopped to the floor while she took a more comfortable seat on the bed.

"I'm in love." I said, as if I was trying to convince myself. The thought was just now really sticking. I, Bella Swan, was in love.

"Yes, you are." Emily said. "You know, that's the first time I've heard you laugh since you got back. It sounds like bells, you know." She said. I made a face, though I wasn't really sad. For once in my life, I was happy with what I was.

"Yes, I know." I sighed.

"So, are you going to tell me who is, or am I just going to sit here just to be swept up into a dance again?"

"Edward. His name is Edward." It was the first time I had said his name out loud, but it was more like a caress than a name. It was the only thing in the world for me. I wondered briefly if this was how a werewolf felt when they imprinted. I suddenly understood their need to be around the object of their affection.

It would be impossible to be rude to him or ignore him anymore.

Emily's eye widened. "You mean Edward, as in _the _Edward? Edward Cullen?" I suddenly realized that not many people would take this well at first. Of course, it wouldn't be too hard to change their minds either.

"Yes, as in Edward Cullen, the vampire." I said.

"But, he's a vampire! A _cold one_. He's one of the pack's mortal enemies. And you knew that too! The moment you saw him. Don't get me wrong, I'll still support you on this, if you really do love him, but I don't think the pack will like it." That made me laugh.

"Emily, you insult me. Of course he's a cold one. I don't think I really would have fallen in love with him if he weren't, to be honest. Besides, I don't think it will be too hard to convince the pack that he's okay, considering how they've handled past situations like this."

"Oh, right." Emily was flustered for a second. "Sorry if I offended you."

"No harm done." I said. "Come on, let's go make a massive breakfast. If the pack's grown like you said they have, we'll be quite busy." I stood up and skipped out of the room. I was still on a high from figuring out I was in love. Emily had trouble keeping up.

"Here. I'll make the French toast, you scramble some eggs." I called back to her. I heard her chuckle as she pulled out the giant pan we used to make eggs for the pack. I used a skillet that took up the whole other stove and started to work.

After a minute or two, the pack started to file in. Jacob was first, and he gave me a hug as he came in. Embry and Quil came after him and hugged me too. In a half an hour, the whole pack that I knew of was there and had all hugged me.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say I've been gone for years." I joked as I brought out another steaming pile of toast. I had just set it down when I froze in my tracks.

A growl had sounded behind me. Slowly, I allowed my body to pivot around. Standing in the doorway was none other than Leak Clearwater. Her buzz cut gave away that she was one of the pack now. She must be new.

"She's here?" She shrieked. She had always been jealous of me. La Push was the only place I walked around without my hood or turtleneck or leggings on. She hadn't known my secret, and I had tried to avoid her.

"Yes." Emily said calmly, coming out of the kitchen. "She is as much a part of the pack as I am; more, really. When we're short, she will even run patrols. Now come in and eat. Neither of you are going anywhere any time soon, so you might as well eat while you can.

Huffing, Leah pushed her way into the room and sat down. I smiled and was about to step back into the kitchen when Seth came in. He walked right up and gave me a hug.

"Hey Bella. I didn't know you were part of the loop. That's cool. I haven't seen you around here lately."

I really liked Seth. He was much better mannered than his sister.

"Yeah. I haven't been able to make it down. I've been taking college courses."

"You're in college?"

"No, high school, but I need something to help me get through the nights." He smiled as if he understood, but I knew he really didn't.

Jacob spoke up next. "If, you're so busy, then why are you down here? Not like we're not happy to see you or anything."

I smiled softly to show that I wasn't bothered. "See, I got struck by lightning, and somebody saw. So, I'll be here for at least a week while I 'recover'."

The pack laughed and I joined in. Almost immediately, the room was silent. Embry stood up and put his hand to my head.

"Are you feeling okay? For a second there, I thought you might have actually laughed." He peered into my eyes and then pretended to listen to my heartbeat. "Actually, unless my eyes deceive me, you're smiling at this very moment. Does anyone else see this? It seems like our Bella is…_happy!_" At this, the rest of them stood up and peered at my face.

"I second that motion."

"I third it."

"Forth it."

A chorus of voices sounded out and Embry turned to me with a smug face. "Now, pray tell, what has you so happy?"

If I were human, I would be blushing. I looked down at my feet, not sure if I was going to answer. Thankfully, I think, Emily came out and talked for me.

"She's in love!" It sounded like she was singing. Within seconds, boys teasing me and making kissy faces surrounded me.

"Is he _dreamy?_"

"Is he gorgeous?"

"Ripped?"

"Kind?"

"Smart?"

It went on like that for a few minutes. I waited for them all to calm down before I said the thing that would surely work them up again, but for a different reason. "His name is Edward Cullen, and he's a vampire."

As predicted, the house was in an uproar. I couldn't pick out a voice in the chaos. I did, however, register the rage on everyone's face. Normally, I was shy, but when it was needed, I could control a room.

"People!" I yelled. It took a second, but soon everyone was looking at me. "Do you realize how much of a hypocrite you're all being? First of all, it isn't your decision. Heck, it wasn't even mine. But it _is_ my life, and I'm going to fall in love with who ever I want. Second, I know you don't have anything against harmless vampires. You just aren't thinking clearly and are letting prejudice cloud your mind. Name one reason why you shouldn't like Edward."

"He's our mortal enemy." Sam said, as if talking to a child that would throw a tantrum if the right words were not said. I just arched an eyebrow and looked at him until he realized how wrong that sounded.

"Fine, there is nothing wrong with you liking him." He sighed in defeat. The rest of the pack looked around, as though shocked, but they soon started to agree. Emily winked at me and I turned to go back into the kitchen.

"Do you guys want blueberry or peach muffins?" I called over my shoulder. It was responded by a chorus of 'blueberry's. I smirked and started to work. It seemed like they weren't mad at me anymore.

I was just pouring the batter into the pan when I looked up and caught my reflection in the window.

Not much had changed, really. Sure I looked different, but I still had the same basic features. I had long, curly brown hair, a small nose, and a top lip that was slightly out of proportion. And then I looked up into my own eyes.

My light gold eyes.

**A/N: So, there you go. While that tells you what she is, it doesn't give away all the answers. If you want, I think you might enjoy going back and rereading all the Bella POVs so you can look at it through eyes that know what she is. It's really rather obvious.**

**Hope you liked it.**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	5. Chapter 5

EPOV

It had been a week, just like Alice had said, before Bella came back to school. I had been impatient the whole time, waiting.

She was whirling through everyone's thoughts on her first day back. They had all heard that she had been struck by lightning. Everyone was watching her closer than usual, but the bullying didn't let up. If anything, it was worse. Jasper kept shooting me confused glances. According to him, I was getting odd bouts of protectiveness.

I had been considerably anxious the whole time she had been gone. Would she be safe surrounded by all those werewolves? It wasn't until I saw her safely walking through the cafeteria that sweet relief came. Once again, I felt Jasper start.

_Only Alice causes such large mood swings in me. Are you sure you feel only friendship toward that girl?_ His thoughts rudely interrupted my watching her. If I had been human, I would have choked. I had been thinking along those lines for the last few days, but I had no idea it was so obvious. It seemed like I would have to make up my mind now, though. I thought his question through before responding.

"I think so. At least, for now. But I can't be falling in love with a human, or whatever Bella is. It's not safe for her." I had forgotten that my whole family was listening. I waited now for the inevitable shock, but it never came.

_Dude, we knew a week ago. Alice told us right after Rosalie found out. It's a miracle you didn't find out earlier. _Emmett's thoughts piqued my curiosity. I turned to Alice only to have my question answered before I could ask it.

_Yes, that's what Rose figured out the night you saved Bella. Of course I didn't tell you. You're too stubborn for your own good. I could have yelled at you and forced any vision I wanted on you for days on end and it wouldn't change your mind. I saw it. No, you needed to figure it out on your own._

She then proceeded to show me the aforementioned vision. It was of Bella and me together. I had my arm around her waist and she was laughing. You could see the love in her eyes, and in mine.

And then I really looked at her.

Her hood was down and she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. You could actually see her skin. It was chalky pale. Her hair was long and lustrous. She was beautiful. And her eyes were gold.

"I change her!" I asked, incredulously. Alice looked up from her tray.

_Well I don't know how else she'd become a vampire. So, I guess that'd be a yes. Wow. You must really love her if you're willing to change her._

I once again looked across the cafeteria to the unwitting center of our focus. I felt the same strange relief from looking at her that I had before. It was like I was a starving man who hadn't eaten for months, but didn't know he was hungry. Suddenly, it didn't matter what anyone else said. I just needed to be with her. It was the same pull from earlier magnified to a thousand times its pull.

No, I wasn't in love with her, but I was pretty darn close.

In Biology, I couldn't help but stare at her. She was covered in black, as usual. I could see from the set of her shoulders that she was desperately trying to ignore me. I had a feeling that she would never really want to talk, and I wondered at the uselessness of falling for a girl with whom you've never had a real conversation.

But no, Alice's vision had proved that she was human. Vampire venom killed every other mythical creature. In order for me to change her, she had to be a human. And I didn't want to take her life away from her. I thought of how bitter Rosalie was about her change and knew I could never do that to someone I loved.

I would not be responsible for stealing someone's soul. Sure, I had killed before, but at least those people had a shot at heaven. I would not condemn the girl I loved-or, at least, would love- to an eternity in hell.

So it was decided. I would not talk to her. I would love her from afar, so there was no chance of her loving me back. I would not draw her into the trap of my life. I would continue to watch her as she grew old. Maybe I would step out of her life once she was married, but I doubted it. I wouldn't have the will power.

With this final resolve in my mind, I forced my eyes back to the front of the classroom and watched the imbecile of a teacher waddle back and forth in front of the board. It didn't distract me enough, but I held on to my decision and satisfied myself with listening to her heartbeat, hearing her breath, and smelling her delicious smell.

The next months passed like that. I stopped watching Bella so much, trying to work on my resolve.

I had formed a pattern of sorts. Every morning, I would drive my family to school and arrive just in time to get to class. I would then go to my first three classes, spending all my time thinking about Bella, but not watching her. When lunch came around, I would walk the hallways around the music room. I was never close enough to smell her, but I could hear her music. In Biology, it was like there was an invisible wall between us. We never talked, even when we needed to do lab work together. It seemed like she was as determined as I was to ignore each other.

After school ended, I would go home and listen to music, all the while resisting the urge to go watch her sleep. I wouldn't resort to that until I wasn't able to see her at school.

As soon as 7 o'clock rolled around, the cycle started all over again.

I was miserable, and my family knew it. I felt Esme and Alice's worry, but I didn't know what to do about it. Jasper was sympathetic, as he could feel what I was going through. Carlisle was with him. Emmett couldn't understand why I didn't just get over it and talk to her. He seemed certain that I would break eventually. Rosalie was jealous. She couldn't understand how I could love a girl who I'd never talked to or even seen when I had never loved her instead.

For I surely loved her now. There was no way around it. I didn't know how it happened, and it had caused me so much pain, but it was worth it. It was worth it just to know that I, Edward Anthony Masen Cullen was in love with Isabella Swan.

I could travel through my life in a sort of daze. I wasn't in someone else's mind. No, nowadays, thoughts of Bella in _my_ mind followed me everywhere I went. I never really focused on anything. I needed a wake-up call, and it came in the form of a group project.

Mr. Banner wanted us to make a model of one of the human cell's organelles that actually functioned. It also required a paper on the organelle and a speech for the class. Partners would have to meet outside of school. We would be paired up with our lab partners. We would be given two weeks to finish it.

As soon as he had said the last part, I saw Bella flinch. It hurt that she wouldn't want to be paired with me, and I had to remind myself that it was what I wanted. It would be better to have her hate me than love me. At least, then she wouldn't have to risk her life every second. She should want to avoid me, or at least, that's what I told myself. My mind didn't seem to want to listen though. All I could do was see her flinch repeated over and over again on a loop track in my head. She didn't want me.

Class ended fifteen minutes early and Mr. Banner gave us that time to start on our projects. Most kids immediately turned to their partner and started planning. I was more reluctant to turn my head.

It wasn't until I looked at her for the first time in months-saw her hunched shoulders, her hooded face with shining eyes-that I realized just how much pain I had been in. I drank in her presence for the short time aloud and thanked GOD that I was given even this small excuse to look at her. It would be harder to ignore her after this, and I would regret it later, but for the moment, I could just revel in her closeness.

She reached down to pick up her board. I was aware of her every movement and, by the set of her shoulders, I had a funny feeling she was smirking.

"So, which organelle do you want to work on?" I asked.

**Oh, is the high and mighty Edward Cullen finally done ignoring me?** Her words surprised me. I hadn't realized how rude I must have come off. Apparently, she thought I wasn't going to respond, so she continued. **Don't play ignorant. I don't have leprosy, ya know. At first, I thought you had turned to the dark side, but then I realized that no, you were just ignoring me.**

She stopped then, and I tried to think of a way to respond. Finally, I just dodged the accusation.

"You never said which organelle you wanted to work on." Her hidden eyes rolled, but she answered.

**I don't know. You choose.** I debated. Something told me to choose the mitochondria. It would be one of the easiest to model and study, and I would soon be able to ignore her again. It would be best for everyone in the long run. I took a deep breath.

"Golgi apparatus." Well that wasn't what I had meant to say at all. Now that it was said, however, there was no going back. This would no doubt be the hardest organelle to recreate.

**Why that one?** Of course, she was aware that it would be the hardest organelle. I just shrugged to avoid the question and fired off a different one to hopefully distract her.

"Do you want to meet at your house or my house?" She thought for a moment, then answered.

**My house, please. We should probably start tonight. What time do you want to come over?**I was glad she trusted me enough to invite me to her house. Sure, it was just a projest, but it still showed that she wasn't as scared of me as I had originally thought.

"I'm free all night, just say when you want me to show up."

**If you could come over at four, I think that'd be best.**

I nodded to show that I understood and was about to a make a horrible asttempt at small talk when the bell rang. I got up to leave when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Turning around, I saw that Bella had her board out again.

**Do you have a laptop?**

"Yes."

**Bring it with you. We'll need to start researching.** Then she brushed past me and walked out the door. Shaking my head, I walked out after her.

Emmett saw the difference in me before I even had a chance to open my mouth and talk. "Bro, what happened?" I peeked into his mind to see what exactly he meant. He was simply comparing what I had looked like this morning to what I looked like now. It took him a while to settle on a decision. _You talked to her._ He thought knowingly. _It's only a matter of time until you change her now._

I growled at him under my breath and then blocked him out for the rest of class.

As soon as school let out, I met my family at the car and sped home. I was out of the car and back with my laptop before anyone else had even taken a step inside. It was 3:15, so I still had forty-five minutes before I could see Bella. Everyone but Alice looked at me oddly as I stayed in the car, watching the clock.

_You know that even when you ignore her, the future remains the same, right? You can't avoid her for forever. Why not just accept that, give in, and let yourself be happy? You're not accomplishing anything at the moment. _I hissed at Alice, but she just winked and hopped out of the car and into the house before I could do anything.

Time was being kind, and the minutes of waiting flew by. Before I knew it, it was 3:50, and I had to go.

I drove faster than usual and ended up arriving at her house a few minutes early. I waited until it was exactly 4 o'clock before I got out and walked down the driveway. Bella opened the door seconds after I finished knocking. I wanted to think that it meant she was as eager to see me as I was to see her, but she had probably just been standing nearby. Sure enough, when I walked into the house, her laptop was sitting on a table less than ten feet from the door. She went to sit down, and I sat across from her, getting out my own laptop.

Without saying anything, she handed me a sheet of paper.

_**The Golgi Apparatus**_

_**Who discovered it:**_

_**How he/she did:**_

_**Function:**_

_**Purpose:**_

_**Random facts:**_

_**Ideas for how in the world we are going to create a working model of it:**_

Chuckling as I saw the last line, I looked over and saw that she had an identical sheet in front of her. Apparently, we would be combining facts. It disappointed me that we wouldn't be talking much, but then I remembered that we still had to make a working model, and that would require at least a little communication.

It took me a few minutes to get started. I was too distracted by the way she would hold her pencil when she was thinking. How she would twirl it through her fingers while her eyes narrowed slightly to show that she was scrunching her eyebrows.

I wished I could see her whole face, but I could only guess what it looked like from Angela's memories and the way she would move her hand or her shoulders. I noticed that she was still wearing gloves, and wondered if she ever took them off. Then the sight of her veins pulsing through her gloves distracted me.

If I changed her, she would never have a pulse again. Her skin would be hard, cold, and unyielding. She would be sure to hate it. Yet, even now I felt my resolve slipping. I was hanging off the edge of a precipice and holding on for dear life. I would hold on even when only my pinky finger was left holding me up. I would hold on for as long as I could, but I knew it would be pointless. I would fall eventually, and I would change her, out of pure selfishness.

No, I couldn't do that. I could leave. Then I wouldn't be able to see her and be tempted. The pain that washed through me with that thought was almost unbearable, but I thought I might be able to handle it to keep her safe. But I couldn't leave now. We still had a project to work on. If I left, it would be hard for her to complete it.

So I would stay, as long as it was absolutely _necessary_. Then I would leave. With that thought in my head, I forced myself to look at my computer and start researching an organelle.

It started to get harder to keep my goal in mind over the next week. Bella wasn't helping either. She had slowly started talking to me before we would start every day. Every time, the conversations got longer and longer. I was afraid that if this went on much longer, I wouldn't be able to leave.

Yet, every time I went home, Alice would still be mad at me because the future hadn't changed. Apparently, she had seen her and Bella becoming great friends. Now that I had decided to leave, it had changed. Now, she saw Bella going about life like normal.

And that was what really bothered me. I couldn't tell if any of this would bother Bella. Since you could never see her face, and she seemed to work on a pattern, you could never tell how she was feeling.

The story was that I would be going to a boarding school in Europe. I was to stay there for the rest of high school. In reality, I had no idea what I was going to do. I would have to remove myself from Bella's life. If I even remained in her general vicinity, I would change her. So, I was taking a break from my family until they moved away from Forks. Then, I would most likely join them again, or stay away until Bella died.

That was the most painful part. I wouldn't be able to watch over Bella. She could get hurt or killed, and I wouldn't be there to help her. But if I did save her, I wouldn't be able to leave again. I would end up staying and changing her, so I would have to leave.

I couldn't ask my family to uproot themselves again. That's why only I was leaving. I had made them promise to avoid her, and there was no reason why she would approach them. It had all been set up and Alice had 'accidently' let it slip to Jessica, so now the whole school knew where I was going. There would be no reason to ask questions.

I was leaving in a week and a day. My last day would be the day the project was due.

When I showed up at Bella's house the next night, she didn't comment on it. I knew there was no way she couldn't have heard, so I was confused when our conversation went on the same way as normal.

**Hello Edward.**

"Hello Bella." Did she never notice how my voice wrapped around her name like a caress? She never gave any indication.

**How are you today?**

"Fine." More than fine now that I was in her presence again instead of confined to just thinking about her.

**Hm. Me too. Are you ready to start?** We had finished our speech and paper. Now all we had to do was finish our model. It was surprisingly easy with Bella around. She was much smarter than the average high schooler. We would most likely finish by tomorrow. It would cut my time with her short.

But why hadn't she commented on my leaving? I wondered about it the whole time we were working on the model-I was right. We should finish soon-and finally decided to bring it up before I left.

We were having our normal goodbye conversation when I mentioned it.

**Goodbye Edward. See you tomorrow.**

"Yes. I think we'll be able to finish then."

**I hope so. This has taken forever.**

"You know, the day this is due is my last day at this school."

**Oh. That's right. I heard something about that today. I hope you have a fun time in Europe. Thanks for staying long enough to finish the project. I wouldn't have been able to do all this alone.** Well that was good. At least she cared enough about me to wish me luck. It didn't seem like she was that sad about it though.

I had gone on thinking that until the day of my departure. We had finished our project the night after that conversation. We had gone back to ignoring each other after that, though it was ten times harder than before.

We had gotten an A+ on our project, and I was walking out of Spanish before I saw her. School was over and I didn't really notice her until I was at the car. I felt a strange aching in my chest as I realized that this was the last time I would see her. It was a sharp pain that left me breathless and unable to speak. Finally, I regained my breath and talked first as Bella obviously wasn't going to.

"Well, this is different." I saw her eyes crinkle and knew she was smiling.

**It is, isn't it?**

"What brought it on?" I was curious. In the past few days, she had acted like our tremulous friendship hadn't existed. Now, she was here, acting like nothing unusual was going on.

**I just decided to send you off properly. I'd hate to have you leave and me be the only person to not say goodbye.** She was right. All today, people had been coming up to me to say goodbye. Half of them, I'd never even talked to.

"Well, thank you." She had no idea how much this meant to me. And how much harder she was making it to leave.

**So, goodbye and good luck, I guess.** I was sad that we hadn't really known each other any better than to say that. I loved this girl with every fiber of my being, and she didn't know. She could never know, because then she might love me back, if only for a short while, and I would change her.

"Thank you, again." I needed to leave. Now. Before just being around her would change my mind. I climbed in the car where the rest of my family was waiting. Driving as fast as I could, I sped out of the parking lot. _Don't look back. Don't look back._ I kept repeating that in my head, and it almost worked. I turned around at the last moment, and that sight would haunt me forever.

Bella's shoulders were shaking and hunched. I had spent enough time around her to know that she was crying. Still, she was holding her head high, and her board was clenched in her two hands.

**I'll miss you.**

**A lot.**

Those five words were enough to make me slam on the brakes. I felt like my world was shattering. I made her _cry._ Could I do nothing right? But no, if I went back, it would cause her even more tears. Here was the proof that she was becoming more attached by the second.

Slowly, I force my hand to shift back to first gear and start again. The drive home was the slowest one since we'd moved here. Every foot further from her I got, the more I wanted to turn around. Jasper kept sending me pained glances. As soon as we got home, I ran out of the car and up to my room.

I had to leave now. If I didn't, I would turn right around and come back. But I had to say goodbye to Esme, and she was out. Pacing around my room, I fought and fought. Esme wouldn't be home for another hour. Would it really hurt to go see Bella for one last time?

My rational side argued with everything it had, but it was quickly silenced. I was a vampire. An animal. Seeing Bella wasn't a want. It was a _need._ It didn't matter that I probably wouldn't leave after this. I needed to make sure she was okay. I didn't want the last memory I had of her to be of her crying.

That was the only thought in head as I ran to her house. It wasn't until I saw her empty room and missing car that I remembered that she wasn't here. She had a job. She must have taken the past two weeks off to work on the project, but now she was back at work.

Rationality flooded my brain once again, and I caged the animal part of me. He would not escape again. Looking around her room one last time, I saw a framed picture of her, and carefully removed it from its frame and put it in my pocket.

Then, before I could lose my nerve again, I jumped out the window and ran back home. Esme was there by now, and she ran up and hugged me as I came in.

"I thought you had left without saying goodbye."

"I could never do that, but I have to go now." She looked up into my eyes. I'm sure she could see the feverish glint in them. Nodding her understanding, I turned around and ran out of the house.

For the first time since I had become a vampire, running brought me no comfort. The ground flew beneath my feet, but I couldn't feel it.

I couldn't feel anything but the aching hole in my chest that throbbed with each step.

**A/N: So, I'd like to apologize for 2 things.**

**1****st****: I'm sorry it took so long to update. I moved a few years ago, but some friends came to visit for the past week and I was unable to write. I didn't think that they would make me so busy, so I didn't tell you all in advance.**

**2****nd****: I'm sorry for the depressingness of this chapter. I was planning to have Bella and Edward forced to work together, both of them realize their feelings, kiss, and Bella to tell Edward. Sadly, halfway through the project they still hadn't gotten anywhere.**

**Besides, Edward is way too stubborn about Bella's humanity to just let it all work out. So, this happened. I honestly hate him just as much as you probably do at the moment.**

**Also, I noticed that some of you went back and reread BPOV. That's so cool. I didn't think anyone would. Others didn't figure out what Bella is even though I told you that she had gold eyes. If that's you, you'll just have to wait for someone in the story to figure it out to find out.**

**Thanks. I think that's it for now.**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	6. Chapter 6

BPOV

The next week flew by. I spent almost all my time cooking to feed the pack. I felt so bad for leaving Emily to do all this work every day, by herself. I swore that I wouldn't let that happen again.

All my free time was spent talking with the pack, running patrols, and fixing my machine. I had taken Emily's advice and lined it with rubber so that it now would resist electricity. It had taken a while, but it was helpful to have something to work on while everyone else was asleep.

On Sunday night, I reluctantly pulled on my tights, turtleneck, gloves, and socks, and then pulled on my black outfit. At dinner, I had been doing as much talking as possible to savor it. Now, I picked up my whiteboard and climbed in the passenger seat of Sam's car.

He would be driving me back to my house and then explaining to Charlie that I had been extremely lucky and wasn't permanently hurt. I had healed fast and would be able to go back to school immediately.

That night, I ran back to La Push and cooked a breakfast that Emily could just warm up in the morning. Then, I went back to the house and worked on my college class.

In the morning, I got ready for school and headed out. Everyone was watching me and talking about me. The bullying was a whole lot worse than normal. I had had at least two drinks dumped on me, been 'tripped' three times, and had actually been spit on once.

I was aware of Edward staring at me once or twice during lunch. Every time I felt it, I had a large urge to jump up and down and spin around. He noticed me. More than that, he was talking about me. I had been polite and didn't listen in on his conversation with his family, but I caught my name once or twice.

After that, in Biology, he stared at me nonstop for the first couple minutes. Just the feeling of his eyes on me sent little electric sparks through me. I knew that I still needed to ignore him, but it was hard. I wanted with everything I had to turn and look at him. The only thing stopping me was the knowledge that anyone I got close to would surely die. Now that I knew I loved him, I would accept any pain necessary to keep Edward safe. I would protect him with my life.

Halfway through class, however, he seemed to take a sudden interest in the teacher. It seemed for some reason that he had chosen to ignore me too. While it would help me in my mission, it hurt. A lot. I loved Edward with absolutely everything I had. After Emily had told me, my love had only grown. He was the only thing that mattered to me anymore. The fact that he would want to ignore me for any reason hurt like nothing else I'd ever experienced. Ever.

For the next couple months, it seemed like Edward had seriously stopped caring about me. I was just a nothing like I had been before he got here. He stopped watching me through other's minds. He didn't follow me home. He never talked to me, and he didn't stand outside the door to the music room listening to me play at lunch.

I was completely miserable. Not like anyone could notice. No one could see my face through my hood, and I never cried. I never differed from my patterns from before. To anyone else, it would appear that I was normal, but I was breaking up inside.

Biology was torture. I was forced to sit next to the love of my life for an hour and not talk to him. I had to ignore him and watch him ignore me. His face was always expressionless, so I had no idea what he was feeling. He never talked to me, even when we had to work together on a project. I was sure he hated me.

I would go to work after school and spend a while there. Then, I would go home, work on my classes, and make a breakfast for the pack before heading out for school. It was ironic, because I'd never felt so many emotions until I fell in love. Now, though, it just opened me up to worlds of pain. Sure, they would dull when I was in Edward's presence, but it would hurt even more when I had to leave him.

So I was terrified when Mr. Banner introduced the project. It would be a mix of heaven and hell to have to work with Edward. It was an excuse to talk to him, to be around him. I wanted it more than anything else, yet it would be so hard to pretend to only like him as a friend. In fact, I realized, I would have to pretend to be mad at him. Any person who wasn't in love with him would be, but I could never be. I would have to be cruel.

I flinched, and seconds later I saw Edward flinch too. I knew mine was because I was anticipating the pain, but Edward's was from not wanting to be around me. It was because he hated me, just like I had thought.

I was glad for the hood that covered my face, because for a second, I had no control over my expression. Slowly, I was able to overpower it just in time for Mr. Banner to give us a chance to work.

I noticed everyone turning to their partners and couldn't help to notice that even though Edward had vampire speed, we were the last partners to be facing each other.

I hadn't looked at Edward for the past month, and I took this opportunity to drink in his appearance. He was so beautiful. I watched his eyelashes brush lightly against his cheeks as he blinked. I reached for my board for something to do. I was aware that there was a dreamy smile on my face and reveled in the rare opportunity of looking on his face. He opened his mouth to speak, and for a second, I was distracted by the movement of his lips.

"So, which organelle do you want to work on?" His velvet voice did nothing to help the cloudy stupor that I was in. Sadly, I picked up my marker. I wanted more than anything to kiss him. To tell him I loved him. Not write it, I wanted to _say _it.

**Oh, is the high and mighty Edward Cullen finally done ignoring me?** I saw the confusion on his face and it killed me. I was causing him to be confused and hurt. I was regretting ever disappearing. If I hadn't, I would be able to just talk to him and tell him I loved him and not worry about him dying because of it. But I would never regret meeting him. I would never regret falling in love with him. Just knowing that he existed, that there was something worth loving in this world, was more than I had ever had before. It was worth every ounce of pain it caused me. I watched his face and saw that he was still confused and probably wouldn't answer. Ugh, I had to do more damage. **Don't play ignorant. I don't have leprosy, ya know. At first, I thought you had turned to the dark side, but then I realized that no, you were just ignoring me.**

He never really answered the question. "You never said which organelle you wanted to work on." I rolled my eyes. He was lucky I was madly in love with him, or he might actually annoy me.

**I don't know. You choose.** I knew I should pick out an easy organelle, but I also knew that I didn't have the will power to do so. Let's just hope that Edward's hate would cause him to pick an easy one.

"Golgi apparatus." Ugh. He couldn't make anything easy, could he? This would just prolong my pain.

**Why that one?** I was so glad that he couldn't see my face or read my mind. I was capable of pretending like nothing was wrong. If he had been able to see anything, I would have confused him. I couldn't have any effect on him. That would mean that he was becoming attached.

"Do you want to meet at your house or my house?" Hm. I thought it might be easier to remember why I was ignoring him if I was surrounded by the smell of Charlie. If I went to his house, not only would I be surrounded by his smell, but I would have to meet his family. It was everything I needed to avoid. So, it would be my house.

**My house, please. We should probably start tonight. What time do you want to come over?**I would need to get ready, and I should probably go 'hiking' first. It had been a while, and I didn't know how long we would be working.

"I'm free all night, just say when you want me to show up." Oh. I would also need to ask for a break from my job for a little while. This would cut into my funds. It was what I had to pay for coming back here. I could have just stayed out and not gone back to school, but I had to be around people who knew me.

**If you could come over at four, I think that'd be best.**

He nodded, and I refused to let myself rejoice in the fact that he had said yes to me. It was just a project. He would go back to hating me as soon as it was over, and I would have to ignore him again. Luckily, the bell rang before I had too long to wallow in misery.

Edward had gotten up to leave, only enforcing my belief that he hated me, when I remembered something. Reaching for my white board, I tapped him on the shoulder and scribbled something down.

**Do you have a laptop?**

"Yes."

**Bring it with you. We'll need to start researching.** Oh, I wished to be less abrupt. To spend hours on end just discussing pointless things that had no real effect on our life, but were vitally important to me. Before I could start anything, I ran out, brushing past him and feeling a spark shoot up my arm.

Gym was terrible. I hated having to be clumsy, but it was the way I had been before, so I had to act. No one could get suspicious. It could be the thing that led _them_ to me.

When I got home, I ran out back first to 'hike' and then hurried back inside. I printed out a sheet for Edward to fill out that would prevent any talking. It would make me crumble to stand there, in my own house, alone, and talk with Edward. It would have to be avoided at all costs. Then, I made a quick phone call to my two employers telling them that I would be out with the flu for at least a week or two. With that done, I grabbed my laptop and set it on the table right inside the door. I then focused all my attention on the road outside my house. Edward arrived a few minutes early, but waited until four to knock. I opened the door and prayed that he would think I had been at the table and not waiting for him like the love struck teenage girl I was.

We went to get started and I handed him the sheet. For a while, he just stared at me and effectively distracted me while I was trying to research. Finally, he turned to his own computer and set to work, thereby freeing me up to do the same.

The first week passed by in bliss. I had allowed myself to talk to him, and I knew that I would pay for that eventually, but for now, I was just having fun with all this. It seemed like we were actually friends. As much as I wanted it to be more than that, I also needed it to be less. Every moment, I was getting closer and closer to telling him.

I found the strength I needed to resist on the day the second week started. Jessica was spreading the gossip that Edward was leaving. He was going to some prestigious boarding school in Europe. I thought of the time I had seen Sam away from his imprint for a week, and knew it would be even worse for me. Then, Sam had been away from a girl that knew he loved her in order to protect her from a rogue vampire. Now, Edward would be gone for the rest of my life. His family would have to move on before people got suspicious. I couldn't exactly follow them.

I almost fell down crying right then and there when I was told. It couldn't be true. But no, it was God's way of helping me. I needed to be able to avoid Edward to save his life, and so he was getting sent away from me. I didn't even know where exactly he was going, so I wouldn't be able to contact him.

When he came later that day to work on the project, I didn't mention it. I didn't want to think about it. I just followed the scrip of sorts that we had formed over the last couple days.

**Hello Edward.**

"Hello Bella." It was just my imagination when his voice changed on my name. Or maybe it was just his attempt at hiding his disgust for me. He couldn't help but le his hate twist my name, even though it was almost unnoticeable.

**How are you today?**

"Fine." He trailed off, letting me know that he was asking me the say question back. He was such a gentleman. It really was so easy to fall for him. Even now that I knew he was leaving, I still was flooded with emotions of love and happiness and peace from just looking at his beautiful face. I wanted to kiss him, but that would just make it harder to watch him go, and he would reject me anyway, and that would hurt more than the pain that came with not kissing him.

**Hm. Me too. Are you ready to start?** I was not fine. The love of my life was going to leave, and he would never know how much I needed him.

Even worse was the fact that we were almost done with the project. It was cutting all my time with him short. I had taken the fact that he would remain here until graduation for granted. Now, even that short amount of time was cut short. I would have to say goodbye in a week.

I was hoping against hope that he wouldn't mention his leaving when I said goodbye, but of course, when your life get's ruined, it get ruined completely and permanently. I wouldn't be able to recover from this.

**Goodbye Edward. See you tomorrow.**

"Yes. I think we'll be able to finish then."

**I hope so. This has taken forever. **It was a lie! All of it. I wanted to be near him always. I didn't want the project to be done. I wanted it to go on forever so I would never have to say goodbye to him. I wanted to stay in this moment until I died.

"You know, the day this is due is my last day at this school." He had to mention that.

**Oh. That's right. I heard something about that today. I hope you have a fun time in Europe. Thanks for staying long enough to finish the project. I wouldn't have been able to do all this alone.** I was amazed at how casual I was able to come off, even though inside, I was crying. If I had been talking, that wouldn't have worked.

I watched him walk out the door and fell down crying as soon as he was out of hearing range. Every piece of my aching heart screamed at me to run after him. To take his face in my hands and kiss him until he fell in love with me too. It was wrong, and it was selfish, but it was what I wanted more than anything at the moment.

XxX

I had remained completely in control of myself until the day he left. I had gone back to hating him, even though the pain had increased to impossible proportions. I wondered if anyone could tell. It seemed like I should be practically radiating pain to everyone around me. Why did no one ask me if I was okay?

We presented our project, and I made sure to commit his voice to memory. Every word he spoke was filed away in perfect clarity to a box in the back of my head labeled: _to be opened when you won't mind feeling the pain._ I had a feeling that I would be opening that box a lot.

I almost didn't hear the teacher when he told us our grade of 100%. It didn't really matter. This would be my last moment with Edward. I suddenly realized that I would need a distraction. Badly. As soon as I was outside of that class, I called both my bosses and told them that I was feeling much better and that I would be able to make it back today.

I went through gym again and left early having every intention of making it out of the parking lot before Edward came out to avoid temptation. It wasn't until I was at my car that I remembered I hadn't said goodbye yet. All day, I had watched people tell him goodbye and I was almost positive that I was now the only person. I would allow myself this last moment with him. Every second would be committed to memory.

With that in my head, I walked over to wait for him by his car. At first, he seemed almost pained to see me, and I thought I had made the wrong choice. Then, he broke the silence.

"Well, this is different." Involuntarily, I felt a bitter smile stretch across my face. He was so perfect, and this was the last memory of him I would ever have.

**It is, isn't it?**

"What brought it on?" Was he sad that I was here? Had I made the wrong choice after all?

**I just decided to send you off properly. I'd hate to have you leave and me be the only person to not say goodbye.** I would not cry. I would not break until I was safely at home.

"Well, thank you." Yes. He definitely wanted to leave. I could see it in his eyes. It was only going to get more and more painful the longer I stood here, so I decided to wrap it up.

**So, goodbye and good luck, I guess.** And that was all I could say without weirding him out. We hadn't been good friends. We hadn't even talked outside of school and projects. I wanted to tell him I loved him. To beg for him to not leave me. To wrap my arms around his legs like a child and prevent him from going anywhere. Still, I saw his eyes flicking to the car every few seconds, effectively communicating his desperate want to get as far away from me as possible. I would not force him to do anything he didn't want to do.

"Thank you, again." And that was that. I reached for my marker again and saw a panicked light come into his eyes. He wanted to get as far from me as possible. Slipping gracefully into his car, he started off before I could say anything else.

By then, my resolve meant nothing. I felt my shoulders slump and let silent sobs rock my body. In a last desperate attempt at talking to him, I wrote a final message on the board.

**I'll miss you.**

**A lot.**

He glanced back at the last second, and I knew his sudden stop was just in surprise at my not hating him. There was nothing more. Confirming my suspicions, he was soon moving again. And that was the last memory I would ever have of Edward Cullen. I would be able to remember with perfect clarity how badly he had wanted to get as far away from me as possible. I filed that away in the box too. Right now, it was painful, and it would be even more so later, but I would need ever memory of him I had.

I ran to my car and cried some more on the way to work. Today, it was impossible to focus on the mop's rhythm. Edward filled everything. I was still zoned out, but if I had been human, tears would be running down my face.

When I finally got home, I went up to my room and found it filled with his scent. Had he been here? Yes, my picture was missing from my bookshelf. Why would he want it anyway? It didn't matter. I ran downstairs and grabbed a handful of plastic bags that were supposedly airtight. Then, I ran around my room and shoved everything that had even a hint of Edward's smell. I would savor it forever.

I let my eyes drift over my room and only then realized what an empty life I led. There were no decorations on my walls, and everything was in perfect order. I spend all my time on the computer when I was home. In the last months, Edward had become my life. Now, I noticed just how pitiful I was without him.

I felt myself collapse, and allowed myself to cry for a while. Eventually, I made myself get up and move on. I would still have to go on. If his family saw how this affected me, they might tell him, or become involved with me themselves.

I couldn't let that happen.

But would going back to my regular schedule be best?

Maybe it would tip them off that something was wrong. But why should they think so?

In fact, if I broke my patterns, they would no doubt notice.

So, I had to remain normal. It would hurt me. It would remind me of Edward, but I would have to do it. I still had to keep them safe. If I endangered them, I endangered Edward.

Figuring I was already in enough pain, and knowing I wouldn't be able to focus on my class, I decided to open the box in the back of my head where I had put all my memories of Edward.

Lying down on my bed, I let the memories flood my head. I felt the pain that came with them and respected it.

Was this all I would ever have? It was nothing less than I deserved. After all the deaths I had caused, and all the lives I was endangering at this very moment, it was only fair that I shouldn't be happy.

With that in mind, I was thankful. Thankful that I was blessed enough to even have the memory of such a perfect person. If that was all I would ever get, well, I certainly wouldn't be happy with it, but I think I could learn to live with it if given enough time.

XxX

Edward had been gone for a week now. No one could tell that I missed him. No one would ever be able to tell. I had made sure of that. Every day, I went to school and played my part perfectly. It was a good thing too.

His family watched me as much as he used to now. Everywhere I went it seemed like one of them was there. Luckily, it was only at school, or I would go insane. They reminded me of him, and it hurt. It was like they thought I had something to do with his leaving. But it had nothing to so with me, of that I was sure.

He was in my every thought now. He was all I could think about. I spent a lot of time crying softly to myself. Jasper seemed to know what I was feeling, and then I remembered his power. Did that mean he knew that I loved his brother? He'd never been nearby when we were together. I wanted to ask him about it, but that would require me to interact with him and get close to him. They would kill him, and then his family. Which meant Edward would die.

But it was getting harder and harder to resist, even when Edward wasn't here. I had never wanted anything more than I wanted to befriend the Cullens and fall in love with Edward openly. Even after just watching them from a distance, I was coming to love Alice's bounciness, Emmett's straightforwardness, Jasper's calmness, and Rosalie's protective loyalty to all her family. It was like I had been destined to fall desperately in love with Edward and become part of the family. It was too bad fate hadn't taken the attack into account.

I was hanging on to my determination to avoid the Cullens, and I could stay away from them for eternity.

As long as nothing changed.

Sadly, I was stuck in limbo. Wavering between one choice and another. One decision would make me happy; the other would protect the Cullens. It was obvious what choice I was supposed to make. It was the choice any good person would make.

I knew what choice I had to make, and I had made it. Now I just had to stick to it. So that's why I was in limbo. My world was in the perfect balance right now. Any movement would cause me to lose my grip on determination.

But we all know you can't stay in limbo forever.

This became apparent one night. I was working on my class after changing out of my baggy black clothes. I was just figuring out how to focus on work again. It was than that she came through my window.

I had been too focused on my work to hear her coming until it was too late.

Alice.

**A/N: So, I hope you like that. Sorry. Bella thinks way too much. It's so hard to write her point of view, because she debates over absolutely everything.**

**Ugh.**

**It takes forever to get her to sound just like her. I have to write everything down, then read over it, then rewrite it, then check it again. She's always doubting her decisions too.**

**And she's just so worried about what Edward thinks of her that she doesn't even notice that he loves her.**

**But I'm sure you're not reading this just to hear me rant. In fact, I doubt anyone's even reading this at all any more. For those of you who are, thank you.**

**I want you to know that the next chapter will be from Alice's point of view. She didn't really come into the story until now, but it's a central role.**

**And for those of you who are STILL reading this, you get a gift. A sneak peak at the next chapter:**

**Soon, I found myself outside her window. The light wasn't on, so I assumed that she was asleep. I hopped up onto the tree outside her window and then inside her room.**

**Looking around, I realized that she was still awake. In fact, she was sitting on her bed with her back to me. I had time to register only her long, wavy brown hair before she whirled around in a blinding movement. I looked closer, and realized that for the first time since I had met her, she wasn't wearing her black outfit. I looked up into her face only to find it heartbreakingly beautiful. Her skin was as pale as mine and her bone structure was delicate, yet defined. My growing suspicion was confirmed as I looked up to find her eyes a light gold.**

**So, there you go. It's the rough version, so it might change a little. Hope you liked it. :D**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Okay. So I know I've been completely overlapping my chapters so far, but that was just so that you could see what Edward saw and then what Bella thought and to help give clues.**

**However, now that most of you know it (And all of you will by the end of this chapter) I'm not going to overlap so much. I'll only go back in time a little bit.**

**Let the story begin!**

APOV

Edward had been gone for a week. Now that he was gone; now that he had honestly _left_, we watched Bella carefully. We were trying to figure out what about her could drive him to this.

Soon, though it was quite unplanned, we were hooked. It was strange, but there was just something about Bella that made her seem like a sister to all of us. And that was without taking into consideration that my brother was in love with her. Jasper and Emmett claimed to feel a large urge to protect her, and I already considered her my best friend.

Rose was different. She couldn't understand how Edward could fall in love with a human. She didn't want anything to do with her. Jasper told me that she was jealous, and I knew that was at least part of it.

Still, we watched Bella.

It was odd though, not knowing if she missed him. Jasper was constantly picking up on the fact that she was miserable, but that didn't necessarily mean it was because of Edward's departure. We could never see her face either, so it was impossible. We couldn't even watch to see if it changed when someone talked about him.

That night, I got home and tried to call Edward. He picked up on the first ring. For a second, I was frozen with shock. I hadn't expected him to pick up.

He spoke first. "Hello Alice." His voice held no emotion. I hadn't realized just how hard this was for him until I heard him speak.

"Hey Edward." I _really_ hadn't counted on him picking up, and since he couldn't make the decision on to pick up or not until I called, I hadn't been able to check the future. I had just wanted to check on him. I didn't have anything to say, and he knew it.

"Alice, if you have nothing to say, I need to go."

"No you don't. You're not doing anything. Edward, why don't you just come home? You deserve this. You deserve her." I could practically hear him shaking his head.

"You're wrong. She deserves to live. I won't be the one to kill her."

"If you don't' come back, I'm going to intervene." His growl scared me, even over the phone. I'd never heard him like this and I wondered what he looked like at the moment.

"Don't you go near her. She's already too close to us."

I ignored him. "Goodbye Edward."

"Alice, I mean-" I snapped the phone shut before he could continue. I was his sister, and I was a psychic. I knew how it was all supposed to turn out.

He couldn't tell me what to do.

XxX

I was running through the forest to Bella's house. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. Somehow, I would have to convince Bella that Edward loved her, that she loved him, and that we needed to go bring him back before he ruined his only chance at happiness. I wasn't really worried about spilling the secret. She was going to fall in love with Edward. Besides, her future never changed. I always saw her as a vampire. So, if she was destined to become one, what was the harm in her figuring out a little earlier? The only thing that worried me would be Edward's reaction, but he would get over it soon and eventually be thankful.

Soon, I found myself outside her window. The light wasn't on, so I assumed she was asleep. Lightly, I hopped up into the tree outside her window and then inside her room.

Looking around, one of the first things I noticed was that she was still awake. In fact, she was sitting on her bed with her back to me. I had time to register only her long, wavy brown hair before she whirled around in a blindingly fast movement. What was going on? I looked closer, and realized that for the first time since I had seen her, she wasn't wearing that hideous black outfit. I looked up into her face only to find it heartbreakingly beautiful. Her skin was as pale as mine and her bone structure was delicate, yet defined. My growing suspicion was confirmed as I looked up to fine her eyes a light, honey gold.

Seconds later, she was hidden under her covers with the laptop on the desk. The speed with which she moved removed any doubts I had.

"Bella? You're a vampire?" My voice was filled with incredulity. How was that possible? And even more important, how had we missed it? I remembered Edward's suspicion at the beginning of the year and how we had dismissed it. I remembered how no matter what we decided or did, all my visions were of Bella as a vampire. Of course, it all mad sense now. Edward didn't change her. She already was one.

For a while, I could only stand there; my head whirling. Then, it dawned on me. I had been worried about how she would take our secret, but it was obvious now that she already knew. And, now Edward's only reason for leaving was taken away. He didn't have to worry about the temptation to change her anymore.

Well, this would make my mission a whole lot easier.

I watched as she slowly lifted her head out. Her eyes were filled with fear, and I didn't blame her. I knew what she was going through. Heck, I had been going through the same thing just minutes ago. It was hard to share a secret that you'd kept for as long as you can remember. Eventually, she got up and-using a grace she didn't have at school-picked up her white board.

**What are you doing here?** I would have answered, but a new thought had just occurred to me. I knew just how hard it was to talk at human speed. Plus, I had been told that your voice changes quite a lot as you turn into a vampire.

"Do you even need that board?" My voice was burning with curiosity. Bella sighed.

"Of course I don't." Her voice was fast, like I had expected, but it was also high like wind chimes and sounded like she was singing. "Now, why are you here."

"I have a mission." Her confused look encouraged me to go on. "I just got off the phone with Ed-." It was amazing how fast her entire demeanor could change. One second, she was simply aggravated, the next her face had crumpled.

"Don't." Her voice was dangerously quiet. "Don't say his name. Please." And suddenly, my mission was impossible. I felt my face fall, and she looked at me, baffled. Bella hated Edward. My vision must have just been a fluke. It had happened before. There was no way that she could go from hating him so much that she didn't want to hear his name, to loving him.

"You really hate him that much?" I couldn't stop myself from asking the pointless question. I already knew the answer.

A harsh laugh tore from her lips. "Hardly." She spat. I looked into her eyes yet again and saw a feverish glow that made me question her sanity. It was a look of immense suffering. Her eyes blazed with it as her hands knotted in her hair and she started pacing back and forth across the room with silent, lightning fast movements. She was muttering to herself, and for a while, I couldn't make out the words. Eventually, they became clear. "I was doing so well. Why did she have to come here? Why did they have to _move_ here? Will they just leave me alone? They don't know what they're getting themselves into." Then, her head snapped in my direction. "Why are you here?" She repeated her earlier question in a bark of an order that left me no choice but to answer.

"I was talking to Edw-…" She hissed. "Sorry. I was talking to _him_ and I realized just how miserable he is. I need him to come home, and you're the only person who can help me do that. He won't listen to that rest of us."

"You're wrong. He hates me." She seemed to take great pain form that fact.

"No. He loves you. Th-." She cut me off yet again.

"Do not toy with me. Jasper must have told you. Please stop lying to me." None of that made any sense except for the last part, so it was the only part I addressed.

"I'm not lying. He left because he thought you were a human and didn't want to change you. He believes that when we are changed, we lose our souls. He was tempted to change you anyway, so he left."

She got a far away look in her eye before she spoke, and even then, it was like she was talking to only herself. "Isn't that just what he'd do. If he loved me, of course. Always such a gentleman. Willing to cause himself pain so other's can be happy." There was a goofy smile on her face, and it seemed like all her earlier comments and actions were finally making sense.

"You love him." It wasn't a question. Still, her eyes locked with mine.

"More than my own life." There wasn't a trace of doubt or insecurity in her voice and her eyes once again blazed. And then her body was wracked with tearless sobs. She sat down on her bed and cried while I just stood there, feeling useless. I was only starting to grasp the damage Edward had done by leaving. It seemed like he had taken her with him, and left only a shell of a person behind. But no, that wasn't it. A shell of a person wouldn't feel such fierce emotions. She was more like a girl who had lost all reason to live and was now just going through life for the sake of others.

"Please just go. Haven't you done enough damage?" Her voice was broken, and she sank back onto her bed. Every part of her screamed defeat. _This_ was a shell of a person. The fire in her had gone out as quickly as it had come. She blinked, and her eyes remained closed longer than necessary. She looked exhausted, even though that didn't happen to vampires. For a few minutes, we just looked at each other. Then, the laptop was back in her lap and she was studiously ignoring me,

A plan flashed through my head. Reaching in my pocket, I pulled out my phone. I held down speed-dial 5. This time, it rang at least 10 times before he picked up.

"Look Alice. I really don't want to talk to you right now." He hadn't even gotten through the first word when Bella was standing next to me with her ear pressed against the phone. A small smile played across her face and it looked like she was drinking in every syllable that fell from his lips.

"Please. Just answer one question." Bella looked at me quizzically.

"Fine." he huffed. Bella smiled bigger at that and gave a silent chuckle. It was amazing, the difference just hearing his voice made in her.

"Do you love her?" Bella no longer looked confused. Now it looked like she wanted to rip the phone out of my hands.

"Do I love who?" His voice was careful.

"Bella. Are you in love with Isabella Swan?"

"You already know the answer."

"Say it anyway." Bella was looking at me in horror. I could tell that she wanted to plug her ears, and I wondered why she didn't. Not like I was complaining. That would completely ruin the plan.

His breath streamed out in one long sigh. "Yes. I love her with absolutely everything I am. I always will. That's why I left. You know that. Now, was the purpose of this phone call only to cause me pain?"

I grinned. "Nope." And I snapped the phone shut-yet again-before he could say anything else.

Bella was sitting on the ground when I looked up from putting my phone away. Her eyes gazed, unfocused, at the wall in front of her.

"He loves me?" Her eyes were unmasked for the first time. They were filled with childlike innocence and hope. I wondered how old she was.

"Yes." Her head fell back against the wall and she gave a long laugh.

"Isn't that just the way of things. I go through all that trouble to make him hate me, and he's in love with me." She stood up then and came to stand in front of me, looking in my eyes. "But somehow, I can't bring myself to care. It's wrong in so many different ways, but it doesn't matter at the moment." And then she did the only thing that could have surprised me more in the moment. She reached down and hugged me.

"Thank you Alice." Her voice was soft and kind. "Thank you for everything."

I grinned up at her. "I knew you wouldn't mind my meddling, but I sure didn't see that coming."

"What about your psychic abilities?"

"How did you know about that?" I searched my brain for any slip up I might have made. I couldn't find one.

"I hang out with the wolves." Ah. It had been required that Carlisle tell them our special abilities before they would sign the treaty. At first, he had been surprised that they had known about special abilities, but soon brushed it off. Edward wouldn't be happy with this new development.

"Now. What was this about a mission?" Her eyes were full of excitement.

"Well, we can't go find Edward immediately. We'll need the family's help. So, what do you say to meeting my family?"

"Surprisingly, I'm not as ecstatic as you would think." She mumbled sarcastically. I just laughed and jumped out the window. She threw on her sweatshirt and pants, grabbed her whiteboard, and jumped after me.

She was much faster than me. It seemed like she was almost made of mist or something. Every movement was completely graceful and silent. I'd never seen anyone run like that, and while Edward was surely still faster than her, it was disconcerting.

Before long, we were standing outside of my house. I walked up to the door and watched as Bella walked behind me, almost hiding in my shadow. I had seen how confident she could be back in her room, and I wondered where that had gone.

Brushing it off, I opened the door and walked in only to find the whole family in the living room. They must have heard me coming. It was only then that I realized none of them knew where I had gone.

"Hey guys." I broke the awkward silence. "I'd like you to officially meet Bella Swan. Don't worry about pretending. She already knows about us." At my last words, several of my family jumped up.

"You told her?" Rose was infuriated. Before I could say anything else, Bella had stepped forward and was scribbling furiously on her board. Then, she walked right up to Rosalie, who looked about ready to rip her head off.

**Look, Rosalie. I'm not asking you to welcome a defenseless, clueless human into your family like a long-lost sister.**

"I'm asking you to try and make friends with a girl who, just like you, was changed into a vampire against her will." And then she reached up and pulled down her hood, allowing her long hair to tumble down her back and her golden eyes to shine out with a startling intensity. For a second, everyone just stood there. Then, Rosalie nodded her head grudgingly and walked to the end of the room. She wouldn't be best friends with her, but she had stopped hating her too. There was nothing left to be jealous of.

Emmett came up and gave her a hug. "I was looking for an excuse to talk to you, little sis." Bella froze for a second at the last words, but then hugged him back.

Everyone in the family took turns greeting her, though only Esme was as ecstatic as Emmett. Carlisle and Jasper just shook her hand. She smiled at all of us, and I was surprised at how pretty she was when she did. I had never seen her smile until now. She had been sad until she found out Edward loved her. Now, she was practically glowing with happiness and determination. She would do anything to get Edward to come back, that much was obvious.

"So, not that we're not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?" We had moved into the living room and everyone but Bella was sitting down. Carlisle had asked the question.

Bella smirked. "You can ask Alice that. I had no part in my coming here. I would much rather just get out of here and go look for Edward immediately."

"Why? He left because of you! You're going to make this all pointless." Rose protested.

"No. I'm not. He left in order to keep me human. Sadly, I was never human in the first place. It was already pointless before he left. Now, we are simply going to go get him back." Emmett punched the air and Esme smiled. I could tell that she already loved Bella like a daughter. You could see the love in her eyes. She was glad that Edward had found someone who could love him back.

"So," Bella said, turning to me, "what else do we have to do before we leave?"

"We have to find him. I can see him in my visions, but he never moves from the attic he's in. He doesn't plan to either, so I can't try to recognize his surroundings." She smirked at that, and I wondered why.

"Is that all that's keeping us?" She chuckled. "Well, we won't be waiting much longer." Suddenly, her eyes went blank, the way mine did when I was having a vision. She appeared to be in her element, whatever she was doing. For a few minutes, we stood there watching her. Eventually, we all got bored. Whatever she was doing, she was safe, but it was taking a while. Emmett and Jasper went back to the game of chess they had been working on. Esme sat next to Carlisle on the couch, both of them reading. Rose went to go work on her latest fashion design and I joined her. We went about our business for almost an hour before Bella came back to Earth.

"He's in Rio." Was the first thing she said. We all turned to look at her like she was insane. There was no way that just meditating or something had told her where he was. No one knew where he was. Emmett voiced all of our thoughts.

"Sorry to break it to you Bells, but there is no way you could know that." She just looked at him and laughed.

"Yes, there is. Edward is in an attic on top of a supermarket in Rio. It's on the west side of the city. The supermarket is next to a red house and has a farmers market across from it." Now, everyone was looking at her like she was crazy. It wasn't possible. "I see you guys still don't believe me. Fine. Give me one second." She closed her eyes and zoned out again, but was back in seconds.

"The first ten shirts in Alice's closet are black, blue, pink, purple, blue, pink, gold, red, pink, and purple. In that order." Everyone turned to me now. I had the order of my shirts memorized.

"She's right." For a moment there was a shocked gasp, and then there was complete silence. Carlisle stepped forward, taking his place as head of our coven.

"How did you know that?" A wry smile tugged at her lips.

"It was a power given to me when I was changed. It's a long story, and I'd like to explain it only once. So, if it doesn't bother you all, I'd like to wait until we get Edward back before I say anything." She was very polite, and we had no reason to disrespect her wishes.

"Now, I just need to think of an excuse to tell Charlie, go back and tell him, and then we can go." She turned and ran back out of the house, her body like mist again. I had a feeling that she could have left through the wall as easily as she had walked out the front door.

We waited another hour or two before she was back. She was still wearing that hideous black outfit and I knew that I would have to change that. There was no way I would allow my sister-in-law (for she surely would be eventually) to dress like that. She grimaced at me like she knew what I was thinking, then announced her excuse to the house.

"Charlie thinks I'm on an overnight shopping trip with you guys. I'm amazed he's letting me skip school like this. I guess he's just really glad I made a friend after a year of being a total outcast. Plus the seven months I was missing." I was shocked by the way she had casually mentioned her disappearance. It seemed like such a big deal in this town. "Um. I don't mean to be rude, but do you have a change of clothes that I might fit into? I hate these things." She grabbed onto the edge of her shirt and tugged, almost as if to rip it, but she was careful not to. I grinned and skipped up the stairs, knowing she would follow.

It didn't take very long to find a change of clothes that would fit Bella. It did take a long time to find something that she agreed to wear. While she did understand that what she wore was completely unfashionable, she didn't seem willing to wear anything much more revealing. We finally settled on jeans and a sleeveless shirt that was a light blue and complemented her complexion. She went into the bathroom to change.

When she came out of the bathroom, she had all her clothes wadded up. It was a strange study in contrasts. The black of her clothes stood out against the pale cream color of the clothes she had been wearing earlier.

She put them down on the bed. It was only then that I noticed that the tantalizing smell of her blood-a smell that shouldn't have even been there in the first place-and her pulse, were now coming from the bed. Bella followed my glance and then started to laugh.

"You still haven't figured it out?" She walked over to the pile and pulled out all the cream colored clothes. They seemed to all be attached in a weird sort of way. She gestured for me to come over and stand next to her. I didn't even hesitate.

Slowly, she showed me how the stitches were rather far apart. If you pushed them slightly away from each other, you could see cords running all through them. It connected the pants, shirt, gloves, and socks. If I looked closely, I could see that it was pulsing slowly with a red liquid. Blood? I sniffed. Yup. That must be how she was able to fool us for so long. I also noticed a second cord twisting around the first.

"I get that the first cord pumps blood, but what does the second one do?"

She reached down and used her fingernail to separate the two. She pulled the other one loose and it poked out of the fabric slightly gesturing for me to touch it.

I was almost hesitant. I wasn't sure what would happen when I touched it, but I didn't want to look into the future to check. It would be so much more fun to be oblivious for once. I was rarely surprised.

I felt the heat coming from it even before I touched it. It radiated it.

"That's how you get your body heat!" I was glad to have the mystery of her pulse and body heat cleared up. It had confused me for quite a while and since Bella had just decided to tell me, I hadn't been able to look into the future and see the way it had all worked.

I wondered over her clothes for a few more minutes before she interrupted.

"Look. I don't mean to be rude, but I would really like to go see Edward again." There was a strange longing in her voice that reminded me of how much she must be suffering. I knew how bad I would be hurting if Jasper was gone. Thinking about it, I was shocked Bella had made it this long without practically dragging us out of the house by our ears.

"Okay. Let's go downstairs and we can get a plan together before we go."

I led her down the hall to the living room and called the family together. Soon we were all sitting down, this time Bella included, and we were discussing different paths of action.

"So. How in the world are we going to sneak up on Edward." Emmett was, of course, the negative thinker. Bella smirked again.

"He can't read my mind, remember?" Everyone turned to look at her like before. She giggled.

"I can feel when he's trying, you know. It's like this pressure against the inside of my brain. It's weird."

It was while she was talking that I had my most brilliant idea yet.

"Wait. I think I know what to do..."

**A/N: Yes, Rose is going to eventually be sort of nice in this story. But, if you think about it, it makes sense. Rose was mean to Bella because she was jealous of her and Bella was giving away what she wanted so badly to have. Now, Rose has no reason to be jealous of Bella. Bella is just like her.**

**Remember in BD how Rose was nice to Bella after she made a choice that Rose would have? Well, Bella just proved that she thinks along the same lines as Rose, so they will be friends.**

**I hope that makes sense.**

**So, I guess that's it. I hope I did well with the whole Alice thing. I've never done her before. Well, except for once, but that doesn't count.**

**Tell me what you thought. Like it? Love it? Hate it?**

**It doesn't really matter, just please review!**

**I have no idea what will happen in the next chapter.**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	8. Last AN, followed by a chapter

THIS IS ALL A AN! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ IT. THERE IS AN ACTUAL CHAPTER UP TOO.

Sorry about that. I didn't want you guys to think I had fooled you all again, and lied on top of that. Honestly, this is the part of the story when I do 2 things.

First, I'm going to thank everyone who reviewed.

Second, I'm going to make excuses.

Like I said above, you don't have to stay for this.

It was amazing. That AN where I told you all that I had writers block got more reviews than any other chapter I have ever written. I had so many suggestions and people encouraging me, it was overwhelming.

And I want to thank you all, so here is a list of every person who reviewed on that chapter:

Kiragirl93

KarlaAndTaniaAreImmortal

kariTwilove

Jessica1

Ham Nox

Alexandria

Alisecullenhaleluvsjasper

Crazy-chick-4life

Mia94

Elven at Heart

Vampyre-Rose

Brittlovesyou

Cindy klover

TAKCH1

Vampires are awesome

Xriar0ckzx

Bellaangel383

Thehappygoth

Littlebug21

Restoringthehistory

TwiWitch12

OH MY MUFFINS!

That is a ridiculously long list. So thank you all. Honestly, it was that that had me writing through the writers block.

Now, for excuses. Yes, I had writers block.

It was also summer, so I was super busy.

Then school started and I was busy again.

And we had almost constant visitors, so I got distracted.

And we traveled A LOT, so I would go days, even weeks without a computer. (oh, the horror)

So, there you go. I actually do have a life outside of fanfiction.

(Please, let me lie to myself just this once.)

Thanks to all of you who read this, and sorry to those who were expecting something more dramatic.

~School-is-my-purgatory


	9. Chapter 8

**A/N: I got a comment the other day saying that they thought Edward and Bella's relationship was moving too fast. I would agree if they were human, but they are both vampires, so it's a little different.**

**For those of you who have read Midnight Sun, you'll remember that even on Bella's first day of school-before he had even talked to her-Edward felt an 'odd' urge to protect Bella from the malicious thoughts of Jessica Stanley. He later explained it to himself by noting how much more fragile she looked than the average human, but **_**we**_** know that's not true. Edward was already falling for her.**

**On the other hand, Bella was always thinking about Edward from the time she first time she saw him, even when she thought he hated her and she had never spoken a word to him. It even works for humans.**

**So is it really so hard to believe that they fell in love when they're both vampires who **_**have**_** spoken to each other and both had it spelled out for them? Jasper basically told Edward, and Emily told Bella.**

**So there you go. I'm officially out of writers block. If you want the full story, you can go back a chapter and read the Authors Note posted there, but you can enjoy the story without it. In fact, it doesn't really have anything to do with the story.**

**Hugs and kisses,**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**

EPOV

I was sitting in the attic that I had found, putting a test to Newton's first law of motion. I was hoping that if I didn't move at all, I would be unable to move no matter how great the urge became.

I was dead to my surroundings. All my time was spent in the heads of the people in the street. It was too painful in my head. Sure, one person was going home worried about whether or not his wife would be there, another was worried that he wouldn't be able to feed his kids much longer.

It was easier to be in their heads. I could see a solution to most problems, and even the ones that I couldn't solve were easier to think about than the one that running around my head. It was driving me insane, if I wasn't already.

Not an it. A she. Bella.

She had been plaguing my every thought for the past I-didn't-know-how-long. I had lost track of the days. It's not like they mattered anyway. I could see her in my head. The way she would tilt her head to the side when she was thinking, or the way she would twirl her pencil when debating what to write. The way her shoulders would shake with silent laughter whenever anything she deemed funny occurred. The way she radiated peace when she was sitting at the piano.

Her last composition danced through my head. Teasing at all the ragged edges of my heart. Rubbing it raw. Desperately, my mind returned to those outside in an attempt to fend off the pain that followed me everywhere. It never worked for long. Within minutes I would be thinking of her, and I treasured and hated every moment of not thinking of her.

Alice had not helped my situation in any way. Her phone call had just made it that much harder to stay here. It would have been so easy to give in. To let her convince me to come home. And then she had threatened to involve Bella. I had an overwhelming urge to go back and make sure she didn't get within a hundred yards of her, but then I wouldn't be able to stay away from her, and I would ruin it all.

So I had stayed.

And here I was thinking about her again. Her twinkling eyes, her messy handwriting, her kindness, her willingness to accept me into her life.

For a while, I allowed myself to soak in the memories, my hold on grief the only thing that was keeping me from drowning and never coming back up.

_Flashback_

_We were working on our model of the Golgi Apparatus. We had sacks that were made of a fabric coated in a kind of rubber material. We were filling them with oil and sealing them closed, then floating them in colored water. Or, at least, that was the plan for right now. We had no idea how it was going to work out._

_I looked up from my current task of filling up one of the sacks and looked at Bella, who was doing the same thing. She had a funnel in a hole that she had cut in the top and was slowly pouring in oil._

"_Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked. Honestly, I didn't care. I just wanted to talk to her._

_Apparently, she wasn't expecting me to say anything, or she was just really focused on her project, because she jumped about a foot in the air, letting out an almost silent squeak. Her grip on the oil canister faltered and it spilled out all over her. I laughed for a second, but stopped as quickly as I could._

_I expected her to be angry at me. I expected her to run out of the room and come back with a slightly different outfit on. I did not expect a face full of oil in the next second._

_So, naturally, that's what happened._

_I looked up through the golden haze that now clouded my vision in shock. Now Bella was laughing silently. Her shoulders were shaking so much that it had traveled through the rest of her body and she rocked with it. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and she was bent over._

_Laughing as well, I picked up the sack I had been filling and dumped a little bit on her head. Seeming to expect that, she moved away at the last second and held hers over my head. The reverse in positions was so quick it was comical._

_For the next half an hour, we were engaged in a very serious oil battle which involved the use of pans as shields and blankets to make forts._

_It was the most fun I had ever had in my entire life, and I knew that it was mostly thanks to the fact that I was with Bella._

_I was right in the middle of a sneak attack on her fort when she glanced at the clock. Soon, panic clouded her eyes._

_Looking at the time, I realized it was 8:00. In thirty minutes, Charlie would be home. Bella snatched up the blankets and dragged them up the stairs, careful not to let any oil get in the carpet. I heard the sound of a clothes washer starting and realized that Bella was going to try and clean this up._

_She was downstairs again within seconds and was handing me a rag and pointing to one end of the kitchen. Luckily, we had kept the fight rather contained, so there was only oil in the kitchen and dining room, but it would still take a long time._

_I don't know how we managed it, but we were able to get the house clean just before 8:30 even with me moving at human speed. I left the house at 8:29, just like usual, and I saw Charlie's car in my rearview mirror just as I turned the corner._

_End Flashback_

I think that was the only time I had ever really seen Bella let go. She was always so reclusive, and it had made it so much harder to leave. In fact, I probably would have stayed if she had acknowledged that anything had happened. Instead, when I showed up at her house the next night, she just went through the routine as normal and kept me at an arms length.

I felt the pain that ripped through my heart again and I let it. The last time I had seen Bella flashed behind my eyelids. Her crying while telling me she would miss me. I didn't try to retreat into someone else's mind this time. I deserved this pain, just for doing that to her.

I felt another flashback coming on, but I forced it back. I pulled myself out of the memories. I was only so strong.

Behind my eyelids, Bella was crying.

Just then, someone's thoughts from downstairs captured my attention. It was a male, but he was looking at a girl from behind. A girl wearing all black and carrying a whiteboard.

Within seconds I was down the stair and seeking out the man and the girl. I didn't bother to think about the fact that this would render everything useless. There was no room for thought in my head. It was too filled by her.

I almost walked up and kissed her. Right there in the center of the store in Rio. Then I remembered that she didn't know. She didn't know I loved her. She didn't know that I cared for her more than my own life.

My kissing her would confuse her. It might even scare her. She would run away and I would never see her again. No, I would need to approach her in a friendly way. Tell her that I had decided I didn't like the school I had been at, and was simply visiting Rio for a couple days on the way home. I walked up and tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around.

That's when her thoughts slammed full-force into my head.

_&%$ he's hot. He is quite possibly the finest male specimen I have ever seen._

Flat hazel eyes stared into mine as she started to fantasize in ways that even Emmett would cringe at.

It wasn't her. **(Ha ha. I'm so evil. ****)**

Sadness crashed into me like a tidal wave and practically knocked me over. I hadn't even considered that it might not be her.

Now that I looked closer, it was obvious. This girl was too tall. She held herself with a disposition that implied that she was used to getting what she wanted unlike Bella's shy demeanor.

_Why isn't he looking at me any more? Heck, he looks like some just ran over his %!*(^ puppy!_

I couldn't stand to listen to her thoughts any more. Without worrying about how rude it would look, I turned and ran back up to the safety of the room above the store.

My phone was flashing again, and Alice's number was on the screen. I seriously considered smashing the phone to bits, but then ended up picking it up anyway.

Her text flashed across the screen.

_Plz come home_

_Esme misses you._

_-Al_

_P.S. I cn't blve u cnsdrd brkin th fne ovr a stupd txt_

**(translation-I can't believe you considered breaking the phone over a stupid text.)**

I sighed, but put the phone down, careful to not flatten it into dust.

It was the first time in a while that I had been aware of my surroundings, and I took this chance to look at the room I was staying in. Then again, it was a disgrace to rooms everywhere, if it could even pass as one. There was dust in every corner that no human would be able to see due to the complete lack of light.

There was a reek of tobacco, human sweat, and urine. It penetrated the air and clung to my skin. I could practically feel it wrapping around me and swallowing me up. I felt like gagging and I had no doubt that if I was human, I would be throwing up. If I listened closely-or even if I didn't really-I could hear the scuttling and sniffing of the rats that shared to room with me.

It seemed almost fitting to condemn myself to these conditions. It was as close to hell as I would ever be able to get without dying, and I deserved every second of it, just for the temptation of changing Bella.

I sank to the floor and zoned out again. It was the only thing to do. That or think about Bella, and the second option was so painful it didn't even count.

I spent the rest of the day watching the girl that looked like Bella walk around the store. It was so I could get to know her and would never get fooled by her again. She was a demon sent to torture me with her resemblance to Bella. I would not go through that pain again.

Alice texted a few more times with a slight variation on her earlier message. I stopped answering after a while, and she stopped texting, so I assumed that whatever she had to say now could wait.

Nothing really mattered anymore. I was nothing without Bella.

**(And now for my first mid-chapter POV switch. Sorry, but the rescue wouldn't work from EPOV)**

BPOV

Okay, so Alice was a little evil genius. I wouldn't mind being friends with her. Besides her obvious obsession with shopping, she seemed like a great person to be friends with, and someone you definitely wanted on your side.

We were about to land in Rio. We had flown most of the way, the faster to get to Edward. I hadn't been on a plane since I had been changed, and I had been shocked by how beautiful it was.

On our first flight, I had been stuck with an aisle seat, but on the second one, Alice had switched with me, appalled after finding out that I had never looked out of an airplane window with vampire eyesight.

I'll have to admit, it was one of the most amazing things I had ever seen. We flew over mountains and canyons and valleys and fields and cities and I had seen it _all_. Perfectly.

Every person who walked below, I could tell you the color of their eyes. Every car, I could read the license plate. I'd never really appreciated my new eyes until now. In fact, I had pretty much seen my 'condition' as a curse. It forced me to leave my dad for seven months, and then made it almost impossible to live in the same house as him without killing him. I had had to stop hanging out with Angela, my best and only friend, and made me even more of an outcast than I was before.

Now that the Cullens were here, I didn't know what to think. They made me feel like I belonged. Like I was no longer a third wheel; a sore thumb.

That hurt too though, because it still wasn't safe for me to be around them. I was risking their lives every second. I wanted to stay, so badly, but I just wasn't sure it was possible. I would get Edward back, for both the Cullen and my sanity. But I wasn't sure if I would be able to leave after that.

Sure, it was what I was supposed to do. It was what would keep them safe. If anyone came looking for me, they could just ask around and someone would tell them that I hang out with the Cullens. Poof. The Cullens vanish off the face of the Earth. Permanently.

But then what was I doing here? I'm sure Alice could have worked the plan to get Edward home even if I wasn't here. I was just making it harder and harder for myself.

I wondered if this was how Edward felt back when we were just lab partners working on a project together, both harboring secret feelings for the other. Was I making it harder for him to leave by opening up, albeit it wasn't that much?

I pitied him, but at the same time, I was glad. If it had been this hard for him, than he really must have loved me.

I fingered the note in my pocket. It was weak now from all the times I had run my finger over it since it was written. It was a note to the Cullens and Edward. I had jotted it down just before we left, incase I had to leave. It was a goodbye letter, and I had hoped that writing it all down would strengthen my resolve. It had worked, though only a little bit. This was still going to be extremely difficult.

But when would I give it to them? If I saw Edward, I would never be able to leave. I knew that now. No, I would have to just help them find Edward and then disappear. It was the only solution. I would just have to trust Alice to show Edward just how much I loved him. Just how much I wanted to stay.

Ah, but I shattered the dream before it was allowed to give false hope. If Edward knew I loved him, he would search for me. Or, at least, he would if he loved me even a fraction of how much I loved him.

So I would have to give them the note that was in my hands. I would have to lie. To lie better than I ever had before. I had to crush all hopes that I might be coming back. I had to eliminate the memory of me so that it hurt too much to think about me. So that I wasn't forgotten, just pushed to a locked box in the back of their heads.

It seemed like the only person this wouldn't hurt would be Rosalie. She didn't hate me anymore, but I knew that she wouldn't cry over my absence. She wouldn't wonder where I went, or what I was doing now.

Sadly, I couldn't say the same for the others. Even for the small time that I had been with the family, Esme and Carlisle had treated me like a daughter. Emmett and Jasper had treated me like a little sister. Alice had treated me like a best friend, and I could see us becoming just that.

This was no longer just an issue of leaving behind the boy that I loved. No. Now I was leaving behind the boy that I loved and two different families.

I fingered the other note in my pocket. The one that I asked them to leave for Charlie. It basically explained that I was running away and could he please not come looking for me, because I didn't want to be found. I was hoping it would be enough. He needed to move on with his life.

Just then, I noticed Jasper looking at me funnily out of the corner of his eye. Darn it all. I had forgotten about his power. How I must be confusing him. Instead of feeling nervous or happy or excited, I was brooding and conflicted.

Before he could comment, a voice rang out through the cabin.

"If you would please fasten your seatbelts, we are experiencing some turbulence." I pulled my seatbelt on, even though I didn't need it. I was calm. There was no reason for any panic. I was a vampire, and no matter what happened, I would survive.

I sat back in my seats and relaxed in the feel of the plane rocking beneath me. In a way, it was calming. I watched out the window and was just trying to count how many raindrops were in the cloud we were flying through when it soared past me.

**(Please forgive me if none of this is accurate. I've never been in this sort of situation.)**

A small rock zoomed past my window and went into the engine. It exploded.

Within seconds, the cabin was in panic. No one unbuckled, but mothers were grabbing for their children. Lovers were hugging each other. Flight attendants were walking up and down the aisles; calming people and making sure everyone was doing what they were supposed to.

Only the 7 vampires on the plane weren't moving. Scratch that. 5 of us weren't moving. Emmett and Rosalie were acting like they really did think they were going to die and were busy sucking each other's faces off.

I looked out the window to see the ground coming up towards us faster and faster. I looked at where we would most likely land, and that's when I saw him.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse.

He was standing without his hood on. His hair was whipping in the wind we were creating by our decent, but he wasn't moving. His black robe snapped out behind him and made him look even more menacing than he already did. Seeing my gaze, he tilted his head in my direction and winked.

Felix.

He had known I was on the plane. He had thrown the rock that made us crash. He was willing to kill an entire airplane full of people just to get to me. I was the reason that most of these people were going to die.

The guilt filled my heart and made me sick, but I knew I had to get away. There was no way he would have done this if he knew about the Cullens. They knew how loyal I was and that I would never leave someone I loved defenseless. If he had known that I was friends with the Cullens, let alone that they were _on this plane_, he wouldn't have bothered.

But I guess it didn't really matter anyway. I would have to run. Run far away from here, because if I didn't, the Cullens would die. So I guess the crashing of the plane would work out after all.

I took one last look around at the people that I had inadvertently killed, and then ran up to Rosalie. She would be the only one to not ask questions.

"Can you hold this?" I asked her, but shoved both letters into her hand before she could answer. She shot me a glare, but I didn't see it as I ran to the bathroom.

"Ma'am. You'll need to take a seat." I was amazed that the flight attendant was able to keep her cool through all this. Any other time, I would have respected her wish just because she seemed committed to keeping everyone alive. This time, however, I just pushed her aside and continued on my way.

As soon as the door to the bathroom closed, I stood up on the toilet.

_Here goes nothing._ I thought. Then, I reached up and punched a hole through the ceiling. Air rushed in and I felt myself yanked out of the hole I had created by the differences in pressure struggling to reach equilibrium.

An absent hope that the restrooms were air-tight invaded my thoughts as I jumped off the side of the plane and spiraled through the air. Felix couldn't see me yet, and I needed to keep it that way for the plan to work out.

I waited patiently for the plane to crash into the ground. It landed with a giant explosion that sent a fireball shooting up into the air. Luckily, the Cullens had gotten out before that, or they would have died too.

But I didn't have time to think about that. The second it had landed, I had jumped into the air. Riding the shockwave of the explosion, I flew over the top of the airplane.

_Don't look down. Don't look down._ It may have been a silly child's phrase, but it was crucial to me. I could not look down.

But I did anyway.

A mangled heap of metal was all that I could see of the plane. It was blackened with soot and stuck out of the ground at an odd angle.

Body parts were littered around it. Some were on fire, some were riding the shockwave with me, and others were doing both.

There were no survivors.

I flew into the ground then and probably left a small crater in my wake. I had hoped that the sudden slam into earth would get the image of the destruction I had practically caused out of my head, but it hadn't done anything.

If I hadn't been on that plane, Felix wouldn't have thrown the stone into the engine. If Felix hadn't thrown the stone, the engine wouldn't have given out. If the engine hadn't given out, that plane would still be flying on it's merry way towards Rio.

I couldn't have been more responsible for the deaths than if I had thrown the stone myself.

I felt like lying there, endlessly. Just waiting for the world to end and death itself to free me from these memories. I would have, too, but just then, I saw Felix in the distance. He was looking at me, but the Cullens were almost directly behind him.

He wouldn't be able to see me since I was in a crater, but if he turned around, he would see them. It was too much of a coincidence. Felix wouldn't think for even a second that I hadn't known that there were other vampires on the plane.

If I had been by myself, the choice would have been easy. He couldn't see me. I would wait until he wasn't looking and then run as if the very hounds of hell were after me.

Actually, the choice was still an easy one. I crouched down further into my hole.

RPOV

It was total confusion. One second I was kissing Emmett like my life depended on it, (which-to everyone else-it appeared it did) then Alice was kicking out a wall and dragging all of us out of the crashing airplane.

The second we touched the ground, we ran until we were far enough away to avoid the fire that would come with the explosion.

It wasn't until then that everyone noticed that Bella was still missing.

Esme and Alice were panicking. For a second, Alice zoned out, but when she came back from her little visit to the future, it was me she turned to.

"What do you have in your hand?" _What do I have in my hand? What the heck?_ But then I remembered the thing Bella had asked me to hold. Looking down, I saw that I still had it.

'It' turned out to be two letters. One had all of our names on it, and the other one said _CHARLIE_ in all caps.

With growing dread, I opened the one to us and started to read it out loud.

BPOV

I crouched down further in my hole. My muscles were tense. Then, like an arrow from a bow, I shot up into the air, impossible to miss, and took off running.

Just once, I slowed down to see if Felix was following me. He was, and the Cullens had their backs to us. It looked like they were already reading my letter.

I didn't let it distract me too much. I had to escape Felix first.

Only later would I allow myself to think about the way that Alice had her face buried in Jasper's chest. How he was stroking her hair softly while staring off at nothing.

I would wait until later to remember that Esme's shoulders were shaking with sobs and that Carlisle look almost as heartbroken as her.

I stowed the memory of Rosalie reading my note aloud while Emmett gathered her in his arms from behind, not afraid to admit that he needed comfort.

I wouldn't think about that now, because if I did, I would stop. I would face any risk and turn around and run back. Back to a family that loved me. Back to the family that was going to save that man that I loved and who loved me back.

I wouldn't think, because then I would cry, and crying makes you run slower.

So I counted my steps. I focused on the rhythm of the mop that was part of a strange past life and covered any thoughts with white sheets. As if they were unwanted furniture in a house I was moving out of.

I ran and I didn't think. I let the sun burn into my eyes and I welcomed the pain that came with over-bright light. I did not look down at my body that was surely sparkling.

I ran.

I ran into the sunset with a vampire that wanted to capture me running behind me. Running from a family so I could keep them safe. Running from my life, so that no one ever knew the truth.

**A/N: I'M BACK! This is seriously a cause for celebration. Cyber hugs and brownies for all! Thank you to all my lovely reviewers who made me update again in the first place.**

**I would like to apologize for the fact that Edward and Bella didn't get back together in this chapter. Honestly, I thought they were, as you can tell from my little AN in the middle. I really didn't think it would go like that. I have 2 reasons for why it happened.**

**First, I almost started off with the Cullens and Bella standing at the edge of Edward's mind reading range, but then decided that we needed more of Bella's inner conflict, so I put her on the plane. Then, I almost made the announcement that they were going to land, but an idea popped into my head. 'What if the plane crashed?' and then the chapter literally wrote its self.**

**Second, I'm **_**really**_** bad at fluff. If you've read any of my other stories, you'll realize that I never have any part of the story without conflict. In my opinion, when a story stops having conflict, it stops being a story. So, I had no idea how I was going to pull off the part where Bella is with Edward before she leaves.**

**This solved all those problems.**

**So, sorry about my disappearance. Hope this chappy has enough action to make up for it.**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**

**P.S. GOODBYE WRITER'S BLOCK! IT IS OFFICIALLY GONE.**


	10. Chapter 9

**A/N: While Im back, we have visitors from out of the country at my house, and Im still getting used to this new workload at school, so I dont have as much time as I would like.**

**Still, heres the next chapter.**

EPOV

I was crouching in the center of my room. My family had cornered me when I was too busy thinking about Bella to notice their approach. I had already tried to run, but Alice had stopped me with a few simple thoughts.

_Bellas gone. She disappeared during the plane crash, and shes a vampire._ Apparently, she was going for the whole, rip-the-Band-Aid-off-fast-and-it-wont-hurt-as-much technique. Id just like to say that whoever thought of that, they were dead wrong.

Getting the truth out as fast as you can, might help the teller, but the receiver of the information is stuck with the short end. I was frozen to the ground. Rooted to the spot. Struck dumb. Whatever you want to call it. It doesnt matter to me.

At first, I didnt believe her. There was no way that Bella had been a vampire and we had missed it. All my arguments from earlier in the year came back to me now. She had a heartbeat. Body heat. She was clumsy. She didnt smell like it. She was more human than any other human I had ever met.

My teeth were gritted. Explain. My voice was rough and full of not-so-hidden warning. Immediately, Jasper was on the defensive.

He crouched in front of Alice. She had nothing to do with Bella being a vampire. There was nothing she could have done about it. Youre blaming her for something that isnt her fault.

I grimaced, but nodded. He was right. I should just move on and be happy that Bella wasnt dead.

Wait. You said she disappeared after the _plane crash_? My voice was panicked, and I was amazed I hadnt picked up on that earlier. My whole family started flipping through the events in their heads. I watched from six different points of view as the plane started to go down. I saw Bella press something into Rosalies hand. I watched as she disappeared into the bathroom, and how they didnt see her after that.

Let me see the letter. For a second, I thought they werent going to let me. A look was shared that clearly spoke of their discomforts, even if I couldnt read their thoughts. Finally, Esme held out a worn paper that was folded up as small as possible. I opened it up to find a flowing letter that was very unlike the chicken-scratch handwriting that Bella used at school.

_Cullen family,_

_I want to tell you that Im crying as I write this. I want to say that I regret every word that is spoken now, but that would be a lie, and I swear to tell only the truth in this letter._

_It was bound to happen. I dont want you all to feel guilty for my disappearance. It was planned for a long time, you didnt speed it up or anything._

_I hope you understand how hard it is to write this. Im not supposed to tell you all this, but I figure you all deserve some kind of explanation._

_I work for the Volturi. My talent is to control minds and place false memories. It was my mission to come and see you guys. It was all reconnaissance. I was to figure out how much of a threat you would all be to the Volturi._

_It was so simple. I placed a fake memory in every persons mind that I had gone missing. I showed up at Charlies and made him think I was his daughter, and you all showed up just after that._

_I was trying to avoid you, but Edward was pretty persistent. At first it infuriated Aro. He was afraid my cover would be blown. Then, he decided that maybe this could work out. If I could get Edward to love me, then I would have a first-class pass into the Cullens life. To avoid later anger, I was to tell you about my vampirness in a moment of daring honesty._

_When Edward left, Aro wanted me to get him to come back. He thought that it would be easier to have him be a part of your coven and join the Volturi later than to have him picked up by some passing coven._

_So I helped you all plan out a mission. Aro had told me where Edward was staying. The little trick that I pulled was to keep suspicion off me. When I told you the order of shirts in Alices closet, I placed a false memory in her mind to make her agree, then switched the order when she got me a change of clothes._

_The plane crashing was my fault. I had accidentally gone with you all too far on your mission, and Felix made the plane crash so that I could go with him._

_Im sorry if Im going on too long, but you are all the first people Ive ever told my story to, and it feels so good to get it off my chest._

_Thank you for your acceptance, especially because I didnt deserve it, and Im sorry Edward. Im so sorry for leading you on,_

_But, then again, its all part of the job,_

_Isabella._

_P.S. Please dont come looking for me, even if you feel like we need to talk. I wasnt supposed to tell you all this. If Aro sees it, hell kill you for knowing so much about us._

I stood in silence. My mind almost refused to wrap around this. Bella had lied. She had lied about everything. She didnt even go by Bella. No, it had all been a way to make her appear normal. To make everyone feel like they knew her, even when they didnt.

Fragments of the letter ran around my head. I work for the Volturi. It was all reconnaissance. It was so simple. Get Edward to love me. The little trick I pulled was just to keep suspicion off me. Im so sorry for leading you on. Isabella.

Its all part of the job.

For a while, she had sounded regretful, but she had ruined that with the last sentence. It was so emotionless. It wasnt filled with fake pain, or irony. It was just flippant. Casual. There was nothing that suggested she hadnt done it before. That she wouldnt do it again.

And I had been pulled in by it all. I had believed that it was actually possible for me to be happy. I had listened to the whispered hints from Alice. From Jasper. I had thought that it would all work out.

This was fate. Stopping it before it went too far.

I stood there, and I saw the effect that it had had on my family. They had all loved her already. Esme and Carlisle were sad.

The rest of us were mad.

She had lied. Lied to all of us, and she had made me love her.

Thinking back on it, she had played her cards just right. She had been the outcast, yet she chose to be. It was a tremulous connection to us, but it would be enough to pique our interest. Pick up odd little behaviors that would keep us interested, and do a few reckless things that made it seem like our responsibility to look after her.

And she had probably made sure that we would be paired up for a project so that she could open up just enough to draw me in, and then close up again to make sure I wanted her around.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to do something, and I _almost_ wanted to go and rip Isabellas head from her shoulders. But, I still loved her. No, the best thing I could do was push her to the back of my mind. I would forget about what almost was.

With that thought firmly in my head, I cleared my face and turned to my family.

Well, we better think of an explanation for why Im coming home while were on the plane. I walked out of the room. There was no need to explain what was going through my head. My family already knew. That was one reason I loved them so much, and why I would be going back to Washington with them.

We walked to the airport in silence, and it wasnt until we were on the plane that I remembered how long it had been since I last hunted.

Ignoring the burn, I sat back in my seat and tried not to think.

When we got home, I went straight up to my room. I would be reenrolling today and had a few hours before I would go back with my family.

Esme had run the other note over to Charlies house. While we definitely didnt owe Isabella any favors, it was agreed that it would be cruel to leave Charlie in the dark when it came to her leaving.

Before she had run it over, we had all read it. We figured that Isabella didnt deserve privacy anymore.

_Hey Dad._

_Id like to say sorry in advance. However, I am sorry for how this will hurt you, not that I am doing this. I need this._

_Im running away. Please dont send some sort of police crew after me. Ill be rather hard to find._

_I had a store of money saved up from my jobs. Ill be able to take care of myself. I just want you to move on. Ill be fine, and I want you to be too._

_I love you,_

_Bells._

I was shocked that she didnt just erase his memory of her. Was she really that heartless? Would she rather that everyone here miss her?

Did she do this every mission?

I couldnt believe that I had fallen for this kind of monster. But no, these thoughts were not allowed. I banished them back to the barren corners of my mind from whence they came. I needed to move on. I would never fall in love again, the downside of being a vampire, but I could try to ignore the pain.

_Come on Edward. Its time to go._ It wasnt until then that I had realized that we had all come full circle. These were the exact thoughts that Alice had thought on our first day at Forks High. The day I met Isabella. I tried to go back to that. To the days when I walked through life, not knowing what I was missing.

I tried hard, and I almost did it. The days dragged by, but I handled it the same way I would have BI (Before Isabella). She had a slight impact on the way I would think, or move, or write, but I didnt allow my mind to dwell on that. I think my family noticed, but they had the same problem.

So we helped each other. We didnt allow anyone in our family to sit and think. We were constantly doing things. Bored Edward? Lets go wrestle. Oh, Jasper, your eyes are looking blacker. Quick everyone. Family hunting trip!

I felt like one of those workaholics. You know, the ones who get that way after something bad happens, and they dont stop working after it, so they can never think.

I stopped playing piano. It involved too much thought. Alice was unofficially required to have Rose with her when she worked on a new design. I was always there to help Esme with her blueprints. Carlisle was there when Jasper read, and when Jasper and Emmett played chess, Alice would be there talking their heads off.

The house was never silent. It gave us all a headache, but that was a sacrifice we were willing to make.

BPOV

I ran. I ran until all my thoughts were strewn behind me on the desert sand. Half of me was there, but half of me was not.

Half of me ran, but the other half was following the Cullens as they ran to Rio. I watched as they snuck up on Edward and cornered him. I watched them hand him the letter, and I watched the hate break across his face when he was finished.

You would think that after all this time trying to get him to hate me; this would at least bring me some closure, if not relief. All I felt was the knife shoved into my heart as it twisted. I felt the rusty, jagged edges as it was pulled out and then shoved back in. I almost screamed, but I remembered Felix behind me and stopped.

Then, I decided it didnt really matter, and I allowed a howl of pain to pass through my lips. My focus snapped and I was back in my body, the desert flying beneath me. My scream hung, shimmering and unbroken in the air in front of me. It rose on the wind and whipped past me, stinging my cheeks with needle-sharp knives to match the one in my chest. I stumbled, still screaming. A cliff was on my right, and I stood at the top of it. The scream transformed into an animalistic howl that started out mixed with a sob, and then moved into a single, crystal note that shot into the air. I recalled the howling of the werewolves, and knew that even they did not compare to this.

Knowing that Felix would be here soon, and that I couldnt handle contact right now, I ran along the side of the cliff, then looped around and connected my scent trail to an earlier one by me. Running back along it to the cliff, I soared over the side without a second thought and allowed the wind to tear at my hair before I grabbed onto a passing terrace and scaled it until I found a cave.

The next days passed with me outside of my body. I sat on that dusty floor in the cave that was hardly big enough for me, and followed the Cullens through their life.

They seemed to be coping well. While they still had to help each other, I knew that soon they would be able to handle themselves. I would become a dusty file in the back of their memory; something to mention rarely, and, when mentioned, they would ridicule me.

Because I could see it on everyones faces. They blamed me. They hated me. Even Esme was mad at me. They went to school, and I went with them. They came home, and I did too. They went hunting and I watched from a distance.

I think a month passed before I forced myself out of hiding. I needed to hunt. After a short meal of a coyote, I knew I had to move on before the Volturi came back for me. Felix had fallen for my trick for approximately five minutes, but he had heard my scream as well. He had thought it was a sign of some sort, and that I had reinforcements hidden somewhere in the desert waiting to attack and wipe out the Volturi. He had called Aro and now they were planning to send a group out to track me and kill me.

While they had never gotten a look into my mind, they could still follow my scent, and I knew of only one way to effectively ditch them. I turned west and ran toward the ocean. Within a few monotonous hours I was there.

I shot out into the bay and kept swimming. The ocean floor quickly dropped off, and I followed it down. When I came to a cave about fifty miles out, I stopped. Dropping down, I sat in the very center of the cave and let the water sooth me. Then, I sent my mind out in search of the Cullens again. They had improved steadily over the last month, and they were allowing a little quiet to seep back into their lives. I guess I was glad. All that noise had been giving me a headache, but a selfish part of me wanted them to never move on. I wanted them to waste away waiting for me. I wanted them to want me.

And they didnt. Not even a little bit.

Still, I had brought this upon myself, so I would have to see it through, even if seeing it through hurt. Besides, it would hurt even more to not know what was going on. At least now I was able to keep them in my life. I was hording them. Every day, I went to school with them. I would sit in Edwards room with him as he read or listened to music. At first, he hadnt allowed himself to do this, but he was healing now, and we would sit together. I would kiss him and lie next to him. He didnt know I was there. He didnt even know I cared. I had heard most of the conversations they had about me. Edward thought that this was what I did. He thought I was a spy for the Volturi and that I just went around making people fall in love with me, and that I would then just leave.

He thought I was the kind of person who would leave a whole town with memories of me, just so that people would miss me, even if I had the option to take away their pain.

It hurt, that. I had never allowed myself to think about how all of this would affect me. I knew that I would give up if I knew of the pain I was getting myself into.

It was just a day after my arrival at the cave when I saw the boat slicing through the water far above me. I already knew it was the Volturi. I recognized the boat. They must have caught my scent, and now they were headed across the ocean to try and find where I had gotten out. They knew how uncomfortable it was to not breath, so I guess they just assumed that I would get out of the water as fast as I could.

I had counted on that. Now, I was slightly concerned about what I would do next. I knew I could find a way to call Jacob, and he would come and carry me wherever I needed to go so that they couldnt track me. But, now that I thought about it, I didnt really want to leave the ocean. Besides, it wasnt like I was actually _there_ much. I was always off in Forks, watching the Cullens move on in their lives the way they were supposed to. Without me.

Edward was at the piano now. He had started playing again about a week ago, to my intense joy. While he only played songs that were written by someone else, or that he had written a long time ago, it was a start. I was sure that he would start composing again.

I sat as close to him as I could while he played, and I laid my head on his shoulder. It felt good; natural. I never wanted the moment to end. I wanted it to stretch on into eternity and to keep going after that. The only thing that would have made it better would be if Edward knew I was there, and was okay with the position I currently found myself in. If he wanted it just as much as I did.

I sighed, and then stopped to inhale the beautiful scent of Edward. I was hopelessly in love with him, and this strange barrier between us was only making my love grow. I saw into his familys life for when they werent in crisis mode, and it made me feel like maybe if I was there, I would fit right in. I wanted that more than anything else. It was a fantasy that haunted my every waking thought. And, as I was always awake, you can see just how often that was. It was what I thought about as I watched Edwards peaceful face as he lay on his couch thinking. I thought of it when I was sitting next to Edward at school. At his table at lunch. When he played the piano.

It was everywhere.

It would have been perfect, too. I could see it all. I could see the wedding we would have. Edward would look amazing in his black tuxedo. He would stand there and Carlisle would lead the ceremony. It would be official, but small. Alice would have decorated the house to perfection. Edward would look at me with love, and we would dance together. We would be part of the family, no longer the third wheels. We would be strong. We would be together. And we would be able to do anything.

As if my thoughts were being pushed into reality, Alice called down the stairs. Come on Edward. Its time to get ready for the dance. Edward left. When I sighed-again-after that, it was for three reasons. One, the Cullens were only going to the dance because it was another way to distract themselves. They would have never done this if I hadnt come into their life. Two, I would be going with them, of course, and I had to keep on these stupid jeans and t-shirt, because I had nothing else that I could change into. Three, I _really_ wanted to dance with Edward. I could just imagine how it would feel to have him holding me as we twirled around a dance floor, the music sparkling in us. But I would never get that, and I knew that was the right choice in the long run.

All the boys drove their dates to the dance, and I climbed in with Edward who was driving alone. I could almost pretend that he knew I was there. I could almost convince myself that we were going to the dance together because we were vampires, and we were in love, and we werent afraid of anyone else seeing that.

It was extremely awkward for Edward once we got there. He was looking exactly as I had pictured him in my marriage fantasy. It was no wonder all the girls were throwing themselves at him. I had to stop myself from dumping punch on them or ripping their dresses to shreds. They were making me so jealous.

You have no right to flirt with him. Youre not good enough for him. No one is. Besides, you dont really love him. You dont even know what love is.

I wanted to scream these things at them, but I knew that they wouldnt hear me. Eventually, I had to resort to more extreme measures. I stood about two feet in front of Edward, and made sure that every girl who approached him had to go through me first. Only humans notice when they walk through me. Vampires cant feel it. But to a human it feels like a bucket of ice water was just injected into their veins. It makes them scared and nervous.

Pretty soon, we were alone. I hugged Edward to me, nestling my face into his chest. For a while we just stood like that. He was watching the people, and I was holding on to him, like people could actually see me and would know he was mine. And I wasnt sharing.

It felt wrong to be claiming him like this, but I figured that at least while he didnt show interest in anyone, I was really just helping him out by keeping the girls away. I felt him move away, and looked up to see what he was doing.

What I saw next made me seriously question his sanity. A slow song had just come on, and the lights were turned down and had stopped spinning. He held out his arms as if holding an imaginary dance partner, and started to dance. A look of intense concentration appeared on his face, and I felt like all my prayers had been answered. Forgetting about how much this would hurt later on, I stepped up on top of his feet, placed my hands in his own, and spun with him. No one was looking back into our corner. It was shaded and dark.

We were in our own little paradise. I was getting my wish fulfilled, and Edward That was when I recognized an expression that had come upon Edwards face. He had his eyes closed, and he looked in pain. I wanted to help him, but then I saw a sort of peace come over him, and I knew that whatever was causing him pain had stopped. I puzzled over this for a while. When I figured it out though, I wished to go back in time and stop thinking. This thought, this answer, was not worth the pain.

This was him letting me go. This was his closure. A last dance. Tears tumbled down my face. They could do that when I was in this form. I stared up into his face, and I wondered what expression was on my face. All I could think was _not yet. Please dont do this. I love you. Did you hear that? I _love_ you! I dont work for the Volturi. I never did. I lied to protect you, and I want to love you, and I want you to love me for the rest of eternity._

He couldnt give up on me. I hadnt thought this through when I ran away. I hadnt considered this. For a moment, I let my selfish side rule. I had wanted Edward to love me for the rest of forever. I wanted him to read my letter and run to Volterra immediately. I wanted him to not care if he might die. He would need an explanation and he would get it. I wanted him to want me.

Please. The choked whisper slipped through my lips with my heart. They twisted together in the air between us. The space that would never be filled. Mocking me. Reminding me that I wasnt really there. That he would never hear me. My words fell dead to the ground, dragging my heart with it, laid bare. Please. Dont give up on me. I love you. I want you, and I want us. Please. Not yet, not ever. Then I just stood there, whispering please over and over. Edwards eyes had been closed, but now they opened. I didnt have time to look into them; my sight was blurred with tears. All I saw was him turning and walking away from me. His footsteps were silent, yet the silence of them reverberated in my ears. I heard nothing else. Nothing but that silence.

I screamed.

I screamed long and hard, and my control snapped. I was back at the bottom of the ocean, and I was sobbing. The shaking of my body removed the layer of dust that had accumulated over me for the last month and was a perfect camouflage. I couldnt even spare a part of me to worry about that. I had thought that the knife in my chest had been numbed. No, it had just been storing up its pain in a little reserve in the back of my head. It broke now, and pain flooded my every thought.

I became the pain.

There was screaming. There was crying. I think I swam up to the surface for a few minutes. I dont know. I was watching myself from my other body. I wasnt there. Pain was there. Pain was controlling me, so didnt need to be there. I didnt have to think about anything. I just watched.

Soon, I had settled again and was just crying silently. I had to go back to myself then.

I think I fell asleep, someway, somehow. All I remember was a deep black, and when I came to, it was three days later. Eventually I came up with a hypothesis. I think that humans sleep to escape pain, whether they know it or not. I think that if they stay awake too long, it hurts their head, so thats why humans sleep normally. If they get hurt really badly, they pass out. If theyre depressed, then they are always tired.

I figure that vampires dont have to sleep because we dont get hurt. If we ever get hurt, its either quickly fixed, or we die. I think that the pain of heartbreak though, that hurts on so many levels. It hurts you mentally. Theyre all you think about. You play the moment over and over in your head. It hurts you emotionally. You feel betrayed. You feel sadness. And you feel a deep, vast hurt that has so much pain it could fill the ocean three times over. It hurts you physically, or at least it did for me. It feels like your heart just got ripped out of your chest and stomped on again and again and again.

And if thats not pain that someone needs escaping from, I dont know what is.

So I think I was asleep those days. Down on the ocean floor. I didnt dream. No, dreams would be too pleasant. I was simply chased by the sound of Edwards silence, even into unconsciousness. After that, I went right back to check on Edward. It might seem masochistic, but it was the only way to see him. Besides, he might have given up on me, but I hadnt given up on him.

He was all I had left in the world.

**A/N: So, that was really pain-filled and depressing. I felt like you needed to get a good look into depression. Thats one of the things I didnt like about NM. SM just skipped over the whole depression stage. Pain is real, and shouldnt be skipped. Pain isnt just skipped over in real life. We have to deal with it. Its not fair if characters in books dont get their fair share of it.**

**Comment if you share my opinion on this. Or even if you dont. Maybe you just enjoyed the chapter. Or maybe you hated it. It really doesnt matter, just review!**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	11. Chapter 10

**A/N: Okay, so I'd like to give you an idea of what in the world was going through Edward's head in the last chapter. He actually did have valid reasoning for dancing with supposed thin air. And if you're wondering what in the world is going on with Bella being there but not being there, that's the point. And if you're thinking that maybe she's insane, well, I won't give any hints.**

EPOV

We were going to the school dance tonight. None of us really wanted to, but it would get our minds off _her_. I'd never really had to worry about what I thought about before. It was a strange feeling to have to monitor your thoughts.

My hate for Isabella had lasted for almost a month. I think that everyone else was still mad, but my hate had all dissolved into sadness. I didn't understand how she could fool us so thoroughly. She had controlled her emotions and decisions. She had done everything right. It almost seemed as though the Volturi already knew everything about us, to be able to avoid us so easily. There was no need for them to come and study us.

I was pulled out of my thoughts by Alice, and found myself sitting at the piano with a strange sense of comfort. It was almost as if she was there. As if she was there and she was her. Not the heartless Isabella that she was in the letter. The one before that, who would get in oil fights, play piano, or yell at me through writing. The girl that I fell in love with.

I walked up the stairs, and was soon being directed every which way by Alice. I had to put this on. Put this in my hair. Comb it this way. She styled my hair, but I messed it up as soon as she was out of sight. She made sure to scowl at me when she got in the car with Jasper, but I pretended not to see it. We soon sped off toward the school. Everyone was driving with his or her respective other, so I was alone in the car. I didn't mind as much as I thought I would. It gave me time to prepare myself for what was sure to come. Alice had dressed me up as if I was going to a wedding instead of a school dance. The girls would not be leaving me alone all night.

With a resigned sigh, I stopped the car in the lot, and walked into the building. Almost immediately, I was set upon by girls. One after another, they left their dates and came to talk to me and try to get me to ask them to dance. I wouldn't.

At first, I didn't notice the flow slowing. In fact, it didn't really stand out until girls stopped coming all together. I had no idea what was going on, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I thanked whatever deity had brought this on, and moved to a dark corner of the gym not touched on by the glaring spotlights. I felt strangely comfortable here, in my own little world away from everyone else. The music seemed to quiet and it was easy to convince myself that we were in two different worlds, the children and I. It freed me to think forbidden thoughts. To mull over what could have been, what was, and what wasn't. No one was here to catch me and distract me. No one would stop me.

So I thought about Isabella. I had loved her so much; it seemed so unfair that I would have to fall in love with the one girl who was just acting. I didn't know that I deserved that much of a punishment.

Allowing myself to focus for the first time in a month, I felt the constant throbbing in my chest. It was a constant hurt. A hurt that didn't overtake me only because I shared the burden with my family. If it weren't for them, I would probably still be back in that hovel in Rio. No, I _would_ be back there. They were the only thing that kept me functioning and going to school every day.

But why did I have to be a vampire? Or at least why did vampires have to be basically unchangeable? I would never fall out of love with Isabella. The change that came over me when I realized that I was in love with Isabella was permanent. I would never move on, or get better. There would always be a constant ache in my chest. A throbbing of my heart. I knew that I would never move on.

But I could let her go.

There was a sense of pain that came with that thought. There was also a sense of rightness. Isabella was not someone you could hold on to. She was not someone to own. She had let me go. I had to let her go too.

Just then, a slow song started to come over the speakers. Reminding myself that none of the humans would be able to see into my corner, and that my family would be too distracted to look, I allowed myself to lose the battle against insanity, if only for a moment. I lifted my arms into position, recalling a life lived a century ago, and danced with an imaginary dance partner. I tried to imagine that Isabella was in my arms, spinning gracefully in our own little bubble of a world. I tried harder than I ever had before, but I still couldn't see her. I searched the empty space between my arms, desperately seeking a sign that she was there, and simultaneously begging my subconscious to give me this one break. This one relief.

And so I would have to do this without the sight of her. Closing my eyes and looking up at the ceiling, I imagined what I would say to her if she were here to hear it. _Bella, I love you more than anything else in the world._ I couldn't even imagine what she would look like if she smiled. I had never seen it. _I'll never stop loving you, but I see now that my affections are not returned. So, I want you to know that I don't hold anything against you. I'll let you go. I won't follow you when you've made it clear you don't want to be followed. Sorry if this is completely unnecessary. It's more for me than you. I just wanted some closure. I just wanted to say goodbye._ And then I would walk away. Already, I felt a sense of wrongness. The only thing that allowed me to hold onto my resolve was the fact that I knew it would make Bella happy.

And just as I gave up trying to conjure Bella up in my mind, I looked down; eyes still closed and saw her before me. She had tears running down her face, and even though that was impossible, and she was crying, she was still the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It didn't matter if it was all in my imagination. She was here, and it was the greatest blessing I had ever received.

But now that I looked closer, I saw that behind the tears, her face was wrenched into a grimace that showed ultimate suffering. Her mouth was open just the slightest bit, and her eyes were staring up into mine with a silent question and plea. I couldn't tell what she was thinking, so I had no idea what she wanted. But then, a strange determination came over her features. Her mouth hardened into a thin line and then she spoke, pain saturating her every word.

"Please." She seemed to choke on the word, almost unable to say it. My heart twisted painfully in my chest, and I knew in that moment that I could never move on. Could never let her go. She was everything. As if hearing my thoughts, she continued. "Please. Don't give up on me. I love you. I want you, and I want us. Please. Not yet, not ever." I still hadn't opened my eyes. I could see her perfectly, and I would never give up on us. The only way I could be seeing something like this would be if there was a God. And if there was a God, then he showed this to me for a reason. I looked back down at her, and she had her face buried in my shirt, whispering please over and over. My heart broke all over again.

Finally, I dragged my eyes open, and she disappeared immediately. I missed her presence so much, but her words had struck a chord in me, and I knew I would never be able to let her go after that. Even if I was just going insane, I felt like that was something I was supposed to see. I felt the walls closing in on me. Claustrophobia kicked in and I whirled around and left the gym. Without bothering to touch the Volvo, I took off into the woods. My family would understand.

Inside was an earthquake, conflict was raging inside me. I would never forget the look on her face, and as I ran, I was sure I could almost hear someone behind me screaming.

I saw Bella for the second time a few days later. I was sitting at the piano, eyes closed, deciding what to play, when she suddenly appeared in my line of vision. I jumped, and she looked at me in shock for a moment, before shaking her head and coming to sit next to me. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I fancied I could feel it.

It was funny how I had already created a distinction in my head between Bella and Isabella. Bella was the girl I was seeing now. The girl who seemed to be the girl I fell for. Isabella was the girl who was willing to leave an entire town missing her and wondering where she had gone. Isabella was heartless. Bella was not.

After a few more minutes of my thinking and sitting, she started to make impatient noises and gesturing toward the piano with her hands, miming me playing. I understood what she wanted, but I was unwilling to open my eyes and have to stop looking at her. Eventually, she just huffed and turned her back to me. Reaching up in the direction of the piano, she started to touch what I assumed were the keys.

It was a strange sensation. I was unable to see anything except for Bella and myself. Everything else was black. I had no clue what anyone else was doing.

Wondering if she was playing a song, I reached out and put my hands over hers, pressing on the keys she touched. As soon as my hand touched hers, Bella jerked away from the seat and whipped around to look me in the eye. Slowly, she waved her hand in front of my face. I smiled at her. If I was going to go insane, I might as well do it thoroughly. She got a slightly dazed look in her eyes, but soon turned back to the piano.

She tapped different places, fingers suspended in the air, at a rapid pace. After a moment, I resumed my following of her fingers. Next thing I knew, I was playing a song full of heartache and sadness. Within seconds, Alice was there, tugging on my arm.

"Come on Edward. Rose and Esme are talking, so I need you to help me design clothes." I knew what this was. She didn't really want me there. She thought I had written the song, and she was trying to distract me. But I hadn't been me. It had been Bella. I opened my mouth to tell her this, but decided it would make the situation worse rather than better. Besides, if Bella wrote it, and Bella was a figment of my imagination, then didn't I write it?

I had opened my eyes at the same time as my mouth, and realized with dismay that I could no longer see Bella. I longed to close them again, to play the song Bella wanted to, but I knew that would just confuse Alice and make her worry. Anyway, if they thought I was going insane, they wouldn't let me be by myself at all until they were sure I was better. And since I couldn't talk to Bella if I wasn't alone, and I wasn't so sure of my sanity myself, it would be better to just go with Alice.

She turned and ran up the stairs, and I followed her, but only after closing my eyes and taking a quick glance at Bella, who looked ready to join us.

I spent the rest of the day with Alice talking my ears off, and imaginary Bella sitting by my side, rolling her eyes occasionally.

BPOV

He could see me. Or, at least, I think he could. I had finally woken up after a long sleep on the ocean floor, and I quickly ran over to the Cullen's house. Edward was sitting at the piano, and I had just gone through the wall when he jerked back. But no, that was impossible. No one could see me when I was like this.

Ignoring any sense of trepidation, I went to sit next to him and rested my head on his shoulder. I reveled in his closeness. For a while, I sat there, waiting for him to play something. When he still didn't, I pretended he could see me and started gesturing toward the piano, hoping some sixth sense would tell him what I wanted.

I soon gave up. The smooth ivory look of the keys filled me longing. I wanted to play, but I knew that everyone in the house would hear it, and someone might see the keys moving on their own accord. Plus, Edward was right next to me. He would hear and know that someone was playing. He would open his eyes, and my cover would be blown. Still, I allowed my hands to reach out and stroke the silky ivories. Soon, I danced along them, touching just lightly enough to not create a sound. I could hear it in my head, and it was almost as good as playing.

Then, Edward reached out and placed his hand over mine, pressing on the same places I pressed. I jerked back and stared at him. His eyes were still closed. How could he see me? No one had ever been able to. _Ever_. What was different about this time?

With a last plead for coincidence; I waved my hand in front of his face. He smiled at me, but I could see that it was a self-mocking. He thought he was imagining me? I briefly considered disappearing, but then decided that it wouldn't change anything. Edward obviously thought he was insane, so my staying had no effect on him.

Slowly, I turned back to the piano and played. I expected it this time when Edward reached out and started to play the song I was trying to. It filled the house, and I was ashamed by the amount of pain and heartache in it, but I had no control of what I played once I started. It was impossible to guess what would flow from my fingers.

Soon, Alice was there. I knew what she was doing. The whole family was desperately trying to keep anyone from thinking too much about me. I knew I should be flattered or something. I had affected them so much, but it really just broke my heart to see that they still hurt over me. I knew I should have just ignored Alice when she jumped through my window that one night. I could have stayed out of their lives, and they would never be in this kind of pain.

"Come on Edward. Rose and Esme are talking, so I need you to help me design clothes." She tugged relentlessly at Edward's arm, and I knew he would go with her. He opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it and closed it. Curiosity filled me almost immediately. What was he going to say? Did it have to do with me? Did he even hurt over me anymore? He had let me go, maybe that was all he needed to move on. To stop hurting.

I knew he would never fall in love again, and I felt the guilt that came with that every second of every day. He was a vampire, and as much as I wanted him to move on, he never would be able to, because he never changed. When you're a vampire, you fall in love once, and that's it. If it doesn't work out, sorry buddy, but it's the end of the road for you.

This whole thought process took under a second, and I watched now as Edward opened his eyes. I look of dismay crossed his features, and he glanced right at me, but I could tell that he couldn't actually _see_ me. You learned to tell the difference when you were invisible all the time.

Did this mean that he had seen me the other night at the dance? No, he hadn't shown any reaction to my being there. There was no way that he could have seen me. My panicked thoughts slowed down as I logiced my way out of terror mode.

Alice flashed up the stairs, and I expected Edward to sprint right after her, but he closed his eyes first. His head flicked in my direction, and I entertained the thought that he was looking at me, but the he was up the stairs and in Alice's room, with me shadowing him.

Through the rest of the day, we sat up in Alice's room, listening to her mindless babbling. Every time Alice turned around, Edward would turn to look at me. I would smile at him when I caught him, but there were many times that I felt his eyes on me when I wasn't looking.

And for the next week, we were caught in a weird sort of limbo. It was like we were in our own world, and in a way, we were. Every day, I would follow Edward around, and he would sneak peaks at me whenever no one was looking.

I had learned for sure that he had passed it all off to insanity by now. He would mutter about it to himself when he thought no one was in the room, but I could hear him. I think he was going slightly insane now that he believed it, though. He was constantly talking to himself, and he would stop in his tracks randomly throughout the day and just stand there until someone got him to keep moving. If he closed his eyes while he did it, it was usually me.

I had figured out how it all worked. He could only see me when his eyes were closed. The reason no other vampire had ever seen me when in this form was because it wasn't natural to close our eyes, or even blink. It just wasn't necessary for vampires. The Cullens only did it because it was a forced habit from being part of society.

It was a conversation between Esme and Edward that helped me figure all this out. Edward trusted her above all else, and he knew she wouldn't judge, so when the rest of the family was on a hunting trip (they had stopped going as a family as often) he approached her.

"Hey Esme. Can you talk for a little while?" he asked cautiously. There was no need. Esme was ecstatic that someone was talking in a tone that didn't hold the same urgent happiness that had become common over the last month and week.

"Of course Edward. You know you can always talk to me." She patted the spot next to her on the couch, and I saw again how they brought their human act home even though they didn't really need to. Did it make them feel more human? Was it just a way to seek out that humanity that they once felt and now missed dearly?

Edward sat as if tired and opened his mouth. "I think I'm going insane."

"Oh honey, it's going to get better. It already is. Here we are, just two of us in the house. This wouldn't have happened before. This horrid act going on right now will go away soon. We all just need some time to recover." She thought he was just using 'insane' as a figure of speech. But no, he was completely serious.

"No, I think I'm really going insane." She didn't seem to know how to reply to this, so Edward kept talking. "I see her. Every time I close my eye, I see her as if she's here. She stays with us. She sits with me at school. She laughs at Emmett's jokes. She hunts with me. She's _everywhere_."

Esme was trying to be as honest as she could be. "I'm not sure hot to respond to this Edward. Don't you think you should talk to Carlisle? Maybe he could help you."

"But that's just it. I don't know if I want to be helped. I miss her so much, and, in a way, this is how I can be with her. It's her the way she was when she was acting. When she's in my head, she's the girl I fell in love with. It's like, as long as she's there, I don't have to wonder about what Bella's doing now, or what she's really like, cause all I have to do is close my eyes, and I know."

She was crying now, and I hated the fact that I was inadvertently causing her dry sobs. She reached over and hugged Edward, and, even though I could tell that he really didn't want to, he hugged her right back.

"I wish I had that too. I'd love to see her as part of the family." She paused now, and I prayed she wouldn't close her eyes, because then she would see me and Edward would see that he wasn't insane. Others could see me too. "But you need to let her go. You can't stay stuck in the past."

"I already did. At the dance. I let her go, or, at least, I tried to."

"What do you mean?"

"I was saying goodbye to her in my head. I even had a last dance. But then I closed my eyes and started to imagine what I would say to her if she were here, and I saw her.

"And she was _crying_ Esme. I made her cry. She was looking at me with horror filled eyes, like she knew what was going on even though I hadn't said anything. And then she started to beg me. She cried and begged for me to not give up on her. To not give up on us. And she told me she loved me.

"That was the first time I saw her, and at first I thought it was a one-time vision sent to me from GOD telling me not to move on. But then she came back three days later. I was going to play piano and she came in and just sat next to me, as if what she was doing was completely normal."

Esme was spellbound by now. It was like she was clinging on to this vision of me. The type of me that would come back, and not leave this house empty and Edward lonely. She seemed to take hope from Edward's story and I wanted nothing more than to appear in their living room right that moment. But no, I knew where I actually was. I was at the bottom of the ocean. I might get to land before I could convince myself that I needed to stay away, but I would never make it to the Cullen's house.

Besides, I wanted to hear the rest of the conversation.

"How does it work?"

"What?"

"Seeing her. What do you see?"

"It's exactly like my eyes are closed unless she's in the room. Then everything is still dark, but I can see her and I can see me. That's it. I usually have to open my eyes to see what she's doing, because I can see her hand, but I can't see what she is moving with her hand."

"Why are you telling me this?" It wasn't said like an accusation, or a pitiful howl of pain, it was simply a question. She was wondering what was compelling Edward to share. I was wondering the same thing.

"I need to have someone know what's going on with me, and I need to have someone to keep me as sane as they can, because right now, I'm not too sure I can stay in the right frame of mind."

They sat there in silence for a minute, while I thought over what I had just heard. Suddenly, something that I had missed in the beauty of the moment, popped out at me.

Edward had seen me that day when we were at the dance. He had seen me, and he hadn't given up on me. He was willing to stay insane just so he could see me again, even if it was only in his imagination

I couldn't stop myself then, and I ran over and kissed him full on the lips. It wasn't like he could feel me. I was in bliss right now. In fact, I was so distracted that only a small part of my mind registered the question that Esme asked.

"What's she doing right now?"

And by the time that had forced its way to the front of my brain, it was way too late. Edward had just closed his eyes. I pulled away, but I wasn't quick enough to avoid his seeing my little PDA. His eyes flew back open, and he looked at Esme, then at where I was supposed to be, then back at Esme, and then down at the ground. If he were human, he would have been blushing.

"Well?" Esme asked, oblivious to his little embarrassment. Luckily, he was saved from further mortification by the door banging open. Alice stood in the doorway, her terrified face framed by her hair's night-black spikes.

"All of our futures just disappeared."

**A/N: Okay, so the chapters have little to no dialogue at the moment. Bella didn't know Edward could hear her until a few seconds ago, and even now, she doesn't want him to know that she can talk to him.**

**So we're all stuck with a whole lot of observation and thought.**

**Oh well.**

**Please review anyway on what you thought of this chapter. I have 200 reviews on this story! Oh my goodness! This is by far the most I have ever had. Keep reviewing. I love you guys.**

**Review PLEASE!**


	12. Chapter 11

EPOV

"All of our futures just disappeared." For a second, I was simply thankful for the distraction. I was such a masochist. I understood my need to see Bella, but did my subconscious really need to conjure up that image? Not only did it cause me pain to think of what could be and how much I still wanted that, but I had been unable to feel her lips on mine. It was simply a reminder that she wasn't really there. She was just a figment of my imagination existing simply because of my inability to move on.

But then Alice's words registered, and I was immediately up.

"What's the last thing you see before we disappear?" I questioned rapidly. She focused, and I saw the vision as it happened. For a moment, it was centered on the clock, and then it shifted over to show us all sitting on the couches in the living room, debating over something. The doorbell rang, and we all turned to look at the door. For a reason we couldn't see, we all appeared confused, but Carlisle got up and opened it, and the future went black. The whole thing rang with the clarity of nearness.

"Is it the same for all of us?"

"Yes." She replied. "I have no idea what's on the other side of that door, but I know it's going to kill us. The only thing I don't get is why we're still opening the door even now that I've had the vision. Do they say something that makes us open the door?" That was a tricky part of Alice's visions. There was no sound. We could all read lips, so it was easy to see what they were saying, but if someone was not visible-say, behind a door-we couldn't hear what they were saying.

We both looked at the clock, and then inhaled in shock. The vision was obviously going to take place today from the clarity of it. But the clock in Alice's vision had said 3:26.

It was 3:15.

"Okay, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but the rest of us have little to no clue as to what's going on right now." Emmett interrupted our silent exchange that was taking place on a frequency even lower than mind reading.

Alice turned to the rest of them and we all moved to the living room as she explained all of our theories and exactly what had taken place in the vision. For a second, everyone was quiet while they processed the information. I closed my eyes to find out if Bella was doing, but for the first time in a long time, she wasn't in the same room as me. I considered looking for her, but then remembered that she was an image projected by my head, and she wouldn't be off hiding in another room. If I wasn't seeing her, she wasn't here.

Besides, my family was coming out of their thoughts, and we were now all debating over what to do now. In a second, I realized we were reenacting the vision, and I glanced at the clock. 3:25. It was almost time.

Just as the last thought escaped, the clock switched to 3:26 and there was a knock on the door. Everyone froze and turned towards it at the last second. I closed my eyes, hoping to spend my last few seconds with Bella. I was confused to see her standing at the door, completely unconcerned, but I took comfort in it. If she could be strong, I could be too. Then the voice came through the door.

"We need to talk to you bloodsuckers." The gruff tone carried easily and was accompanied by the unmistakable stench of werewolf. Carlisle started to walk forward, hesitated, war raging on his face, and then continued all the way to the door, a strange kind of resolve on his face.

"Are you insane? Do you want to die?" Rose cried out in protest before he could open the door, but it went unheard. The door swung out, and three werewolves, shaking with anger but still in human form, came in. They walked as if the ground was composed of hot coals. Constantly moving so that it couldn't burn their feet. They didn't make any immediate move to annihilate us, and while that didn't make any sense, we all relaxed slightly.

The wolves wasted no time beating around the bush.

"What did you guys do to Bella?" We all stared blankly at them. They knew Bella? And even if they did know Bella, why did they think we had done anything? Alice looked a little surprised, but then she seemed to remember something.

"Bella did mention she hung out with you guys." Every head in the room turned to her.

"And why did you think this was unnecessary to mention until this moment?" My voice was ice, but I couldn't find the strength or inclination to melt it.

"It was the excuse she used when I asked how she knew what our powers were. I was going to mention it, but then I figured that it was just a way to cover up the fact that she had studied up on us before the Volturi sent her to watch us. I didn't think it was important, and we were already depressed enough, I didn't want to make anything worse."

By now, we had forgotten about the wolves, but when I looked over, they were peering at us like we were some interesting species of alien speaking a foreign language that they had learned long ago, and maybe, if they listened hard enough, they would remember enough to understand us. They had stopped shifting from foot to foot. Our conversation consumed all of their focus.

"I'm sorry." Sam, the leader, was the first to attempt to speak. Arguments ceased for the time being. "If you could please explain exactly what's going on, and where Bella is, it would make this a whole lot easier."

Alice glanced at me to see if I would speak, but then started herself when she saw I wasn't that healed yet.

"Bella was part of the Volturi. She came here to spy on our family and placed a false memory in everyone's head saying she was Charlie's daughter. That's her power. Anyway, she stayed for a while and then, when she got enough information, she just left. She didn't even bother to erase the memory of her. She prefers to let us all suffer."

They all exchanged a loaded glace that they didn't spare a thought to, so I had no idea what it meant. Then, Sam spoke up again. "How did you manage to figure all this out. I'm sure the Volturi doesn't take kindly to their secrets being shared." There was an ironic and mocking edge to his voice, but it was so faint that I was sure I was imagining it.

"She left us a letter." Esme spoke now, her voice carefully neutral to hide the pain that came from reliving this memory.

"Can we see this letter?" I raced up to my room where I kept the letter in a drawer in my dresser. Grabbing the well-worn paper in my hand, I raced back down before the painful thing could burn a hole in my hand. Sam snatched it up and sniffed it, assuring himself that it was from Bella. Then he opened it up, read it, chuckled once in his head, and promptly blocked his thoughts.

Wondering at his peculiar behavior, I watched as he turned around, tapped the werewolf behind him-Jacob-on his hand twice, and placed the letter in the waiting palm. The procedure was repeated with Jacob, and then the other wolf-Seth-in precisely the same order. Wolf reads note, chuckles once or twice, and then blocks their thoughts from me.

"May we come back in a few moments? We need to talk this over with everyone. We'll be back in a second." Carlisle nodded, his thoughts questioning, and they ran out the door and into the forest. I closed my eyes to look for Bella, but she wasn't here right now.

We went back into the living room and I was soon requested to explain exactly what had just occurred, with the all knowing perspective only a mind reader could have.

"They know something we don't. That's about all I know. When they first came in, they were all thinking something along the lines of 'I'm going to kill them once I find out what they did to Bella.' They didn't think about anything else. They were really just confused when they heard about the letter, and when they read it, every single one of them would read it, laugh, and block their thoughts. They're very good at it too."

So we all sat there waiting for them to come back, and it didn't take that long. Only a minute or two after they left, they were knocking on the door and letting themselves.

"We have to get Bella back." That was all they said. I closed my eyes to see what imaginary Bella thought of that. She was snarling at the wolves and her eyes were blazing. Seconds after I opened my eyes again, a vase flew through the air, hitting Sam full in the face. The hundred-dollar glass shattered and sliced his face in multiple places. We all looked in the direction it had come from, but there was no one there.

The only thing that kept my family from going into shock was the hysterical laughter that sounded from the wolves. One by one, we turned to look at him with the kind of smiles you reserved for the clinically insane, all the while exchanging panicked glances. The cuts on Sam's face had already healed, and he was bent double on the ground laughing.

They soon stopped, but the looks on our faces got them started again, and it wasn't until a couple minutes later that we were able to talk to them again.

"Okay, would someone like to explain what exactly was so funny just now?" Emmett demanded. He hated being out of the loop. For once, I didn't blame him. The wolves didn't let their guard down for a minute. I had no idea what was going on, and it was a strange feeling for me.

"She was just, so _angry_." Jacob spoke, and this sent them into another chorus of laugher that was shorter, but still irksome.

"Who's she? And how did a vase fly through the air like that?" Carlisle was speaking now.

"It was all Bella." Seth said offhandedly, as if we should already know this. As if it were common sense instead of a foreign language. We all just sat there dumbly, waiting for further information that could make any of this make sense. "She's here, you know."

Esme shot a glance at me, and I stared back. It wasn't possible. There was no way. It had to all be some sort of coincidence.

"What do you mean?" Esme asked, sounding much calmer than either of us felt.

"I think you know exactly what we mean. Or, at least, he does." Jacob pointed at me, and the rest of the family turned as if somehow controlled by his finger.

"Do you know what he's talking about, Edward?" Alice.

I went to respond, but was interrupted by Seth. "Oh, so _you're _Edward? Sorry. I wasn't here when we renewed the treaty and all that. Then again, I should have figured you were Edward. You're just the kind of person she would fall for, from what I know of her." He was oblivious to all the warning glances that Sam and Jacob were shooting him, and to the pain that was shooting through my heart at that very moment. She never fell for me, and she never would. She played on all of our emotions, and then left before anyone could really figure her out.

Alice spoke again. "Well, now that that's been established, I'll repeat my earlier question. Do you know what he's talking about Edward?"

"I don't know. I think I might, but it could also all be a coincidence. I never thought much of it before."

"Please just spit it out. What the heck are you talking about?" Emmett butted in.

"The first time I saw Bella was at the school dance. We danced together, actually. I was trying to let her go at the time. It failed, but I figured that she was some conjured up by my imagination to make it easier, or harder. I never really figured that out. Then, she was gone for two days, but she came back when I was sitting at the piano. I was playing the song she showed me when Alice came down and made me come up and look at designs with her. Bella followed.

"After that, she was almost always with me. Any time I looked for her, I could see her. She went to school with me. She went home with me. We went hunting together. She was everywhere. I only just told Esme about her today."

"Wait. You've been hanging out with Bella for the past week and you haven't bothered to tell us? That isn't healthy Edward. You know she was just playing with you. Why would that change? You need to stop seeing her, before this gets even worse." Alice really was concerned about me. I could feel it. Appparently, though, I hadn't explained everything as well as I had thought.

"It's not like that. I can see her, she's just not actually _here_."

"Oh thanks, that clears everything up." Her voice was thick with sarcasm, and I could feel the anger radiating off her. Also, underneath her anger and concern, I could sense a thought that she was trying desperately to hide. She was jealous. Even though she knew just how dangerous it was to be hanging out with Bella now, she wished that Bella had shown up for her instead of me. She wanted to see her sister again.

"Look, Alice. I'm insane, okay? That's the problem here. I see Bella in my head whenever I close my eyes. She follows me around. She does everything with me. In my head, she still loves me. I know that she doesn't really, but I don't think my mind can totally accept that yet."

The wolves were standing there, obviously not fitting in, until Seth walked right up to me and patted me on the back. "Don't worry, my friend. You're not as insane as you think. In fact, if everyone here just closes their eyes…" He was rudely interrupted by another flying vase that seemed oddly attracted to his face. It shattered and cut him, dragging a curse through his lips.

"Chill out! It's for the best. You know you want it too." He called out, and the rest of us stared at him like he was the insane one, instead of me. He seemed to be talking to thin air. However, thin air seemed incapable of talking, though not of throwing things. After the vase came a plate, then a lamp, and finally a chair. Still, he kept talking.

"Don't even try to disagree…I've _really_ known you for about a month, and I rarely got to see you even then, and even I know that it's what you want…you're not listening to reason. They need you here and you know it…I don't care whatever ridiculous reason you have for going away. You know that they might come to ask for help anyway. One touch and it's all over." Even through all of this seemingly mindless babble, he kept his thoughts blocked. I had no idea what he was talking about, or who he was talking to. It irked me to no end.

"Fine. You obviously won't see reason." He turned to us, smiled an apologetic smile that just made us more confused, and started to explain. "As I was saying before, if you all just close your eyes, I'm sure each and every one of you will see a very livid Bella standing in this very room." All of us closed our eyes, albeit cautiously. I still saw her, but Seth was right. She was even angrier than last time, a towering fury streaming out of every pore. Screaming growls tore through her lips, and I realized that this was the first time I had heard her make any noise when in this form, excepting the time at the dance. I had just assumed that she couldn't, and that the dance was just a special occasion.

I opened my eyes again, and saw the wolves staring at us with longing. _Wish I could do that._ A single thought slipped through Jacob's defense, and I huffed in annoyance when it did nothing to clear up the situation. Glancing at my family, I saw that they were all basically in the same position. They were leaning forward, closed eyes squinting. They had the same expression I had seen on a human's face when they had just eaten a piece of chocolate or other delicacy. There was a look of pure happiness and bliss on their faces. Even Rose looked happy, though not nearly as happy as the rest of them.

Seth started talking again, and they reluctantly opened their eyes and focused on the wolf in front of them.

"She isn't actually there, but she _is_ seeing everything. And hearing. And even feeling everything. It's as if she's actually here, we just can't see her unless our eyes are closed. Don't ask how this is, or why. We really don't know, we just know that it is. You can ask her about it next time you see her. Now, all we really need is a plan."

For a second, everyone stood around, thoughts whirling in their head and waiting for someone else to take charge.

"I think it would be best to have one of the wolves to lead us this time, as they know infinitely more than we do at the moment." Carlisle was the one to break the silence, and soon the rest of us were nodding along. Sam stepped forward.

"I think I would be best to lead in this particular situation-" He was interrupted by Rosalie.

"Wait a minute. Really? All that just occurred really was that we all closed our eyes and saw Bella in the room with us, and we just assume that it cancels out everything she told us? Am I the only one that needs a little proof before we go traipsing off after a girl that a, told us to stay away from her or we'd _die_ and b, might not want us coming after he anyway? It seems a little sudden, and a lot impulsive. Please, I'm not against going to help her if she needs it, but I honestly don't think she needs it, or wants it. I need a reason to go after the girl who put my family into depression for over a month now, and who broke my brother's heart."

No one was really shocked by her outburst, more by the fact that none of us had even considered that. Were we really about to go run off without any idea of what was true and what wasn't?

"I'm amazed no one spoke up sooner, honestly." Sam said, pulling a book out of a backpack behind him. "Of course, I was prepared, but I wasn't going to bring it up if no one mentioned it, because it's definitely going to waste time." He then walked over and plopped down on the couch, placing the book on the coffee table in front of him. We all gathered around to see exactly what he was doing.

The first page showed a picture of a little baby with a fringe of black hair and bronze skin. Okay, so it was a photo album. How would this help anything? The next few pages showed Sam growing up. I didn't see the point of all this. Every picture was almost exactly the same. Only the background changed. In fact, two years passed before they changed. Then, Sam wasn't the only one in the pictures. At first, it was just him sitting next to a cradle. Then it was him holding a baby in his two year old lap.

Soon, the baby was a year old and had a mop of brown hair on her head. Happy brown eyes smiled into the camera. Before long, there were picture of the two of them on a swing set. Then they were playing in the waves at the beach. Chasing seagulls. Opening presents. It went on for almost the entire book. I watched a young Bella grow into a child Bella, and then a teenager Bella. I watched in fascination, seeing a glint in her eye that I had never seen before. She looked genuinely happy. Untroubled.

It got right up to where you could tell that Bella was sixteen. It showed her driving around in her giant red truck, smiling away like it was the most fun she'd ever had. It was obvious that she loved the truck, and I wondered what had happened to that. Just as I was wondering when her disappearance would come, it did.

The difference was evident and impossible to miss. Bella had been in almost every picture up to then, and now she just wasn't. The youth was completely gone from Sam's brow. He smiled into the camera, and there were times that he did look genuinely happy-mainly when he was with a girl that I didn't recognize. There were also pictures snapped of him unawares, though, and he was always scowling, staring off into the distance. Stress was visible in his every position.

And then he turned the page again, and everyone gasped. We had gotten so used to the Bella we had been looking at in the pictures, and that we had seen at school, that the shock from her reappearance, dressed in a blue shirt and fully vampire, surprised us.

But that wasn't what really hurt.

The look in her eyes was enough to cut anyone's heart. Or more, the difference. She was standing next to Sam, his arm around her waist. He was smiling again, and, while her disappearance had left an effect on him, he looked much more like the carefree person he had been before all of it. But Bella, oh _Bella_. She looked worse than sad, or stressed.

She looked dead.

There was hardly any emotion in her eyes. That which was there was hidden deeply, but seemed to rumble like a storm cloud just beyond the horizon. She looked dangerous, and scared, and hurt, and edgy all at once. In the first picture, Sam didn't seem to be noticing it, but by the next page, you could tell he had figured it out. Bella didn't show up in the photos as often as she had before, but whenever she did, Sam now had a slight frown on his face, looking over at her worriedly. I didn't know what all had happened to her during the missing months, but I now knew that it was more than just getting changed into a vampire. Even a change as great as that couldn't leave someone looking so haunted.

A few more months of scrapbook time passed, and Bella showed up less and less. She never once smiled, and soon she all but faded out of the book. I looked around to see the rest of my family crying, or seriously depressed in some way. Even Rosalie wasn't trying to hide it. She saw now that there was absolutely no reason to be jealous of Bella. In fact, this walk through Bella's life was making her appreciate her life just a little bit more.

For some reason, Sam kept turning the pages of the book. I wanted to call out to him to please stop. No one wanted to look on any more. It was pointless. No one wanted to see the absence of Bella on every page that screamed of depression. I had never seen a photo album tell such a story before.

And then he turned the page.

There was a full-page image blown up as large as it could go and not hang over the edges. In this page was a picture of Bella twirling around a room, holding hands with the woman from before, mouth open in laughter. Bella was turned to face the photographer at the moment, though in another she would be facing away. Her hair flew out behind her, accentuating her beauty. Her eyes were shining even more than they had when she was growing up. Happiness shone from the picture. It was clear that both girls were oblivious to the camera snapping a permanent memory of the occasion.

Sam's voice was rough when she finally spoke. "I couldn't thank the stars and every god listening enough the day she got struck by lightning. She was forced to come and stay with us for a whole week while pretending to visit a special doctor. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done to shield my joy from Edward when he called me to tell me."

"What made her smile like this?" Esme whispered reverently, staring at the picture and lightly brushing the curve of Bella's cheek with the very tip of her finger, as if any loud noise or sudden movement would cause the laugh on Bella's face to dissipate.

Sam cleared his throat. "I didn't listen to the whole conversation. I just remember being shocked at the laughter and running to get the camera so I would have something to look at on the days when I though she would never smile again." He saw the disappointment on our faces, and quickly continued. "That is not to say that I don't have my theories. I may not have heard the conversation, but it wasn't an hour and a half later that she announced something to us after the boys commented on how happy she looked.

"She told us she had fallen in love. She told us that she was in love with Edward Cullen, the vampire." He let that soak in for a moment and then went on. "We were in uproar for a while. We all told her that she shouldn't be around you. That vampires were are mortal enemies and so forth. Of course, within a few minutes she showed us all just how wrong that sounded when we were standing there arguing with a vampire in my own kitchen.

"But that's not the point. The point is that you made her happy. Happy. Do you realize how big that was? The whole pack was completely baffled and thrilled at the same time. We all love Bella like a sister, and it worried us to see her so sad. And then she defended you all like I have never seen her do before. She's not one to stand up for herself. She'll drop subtle hints and let you figure out that you're wrong all by yourself. But she didn't let us say one bad word about any of you. You all changed her."

I closed my eyes, and saw that Bella was still snarling at Sam like her life depended on it, but she was crying too. She was looking at him with anger and pity and sadness all bottled up into one expression that hurt to look at. I was just glad that Jasper couldn't feel her emotions in this form. You could tell the pain she was in just by looking. If he could feel it too, it would soon be projected on to all of us. It was a selfish relief.

"Do you believe me now?" Sam asked, turning to Rose, who immediately nodded, too struck to talk.

"Okay, so now that that's cleared up, we need to go find Bella, who is _not_, by the way, part of the Volturi, though it was a clever lie. One that would ensure your staying here." Jacob spoke up.

So now we just needed another plan.

**A/N: Okay, so here's the sad thing. I am going to be gone on a school field trip for the next week, and I will have no access to computers, so I will not be able to update. Sorry everybody, but that's just the way it works. Hope you can all handle missing me for a week ir two.**

**Thanks to all who read this. You guys really are the best. Please review if you feel like it. Tell me what you thought. I really kind of liked the way you got to see a little bit of what it was like for Bella, even when he wasn't there explaining it. Did you like that? Did you hate it? It doesn't matter what you think, as long as you update.**

**Love you guys,**

**~School-is-my-purgatory**


	13. Chapter 12

**A/N: Okay, so we're back to repeating chapters in Bella's point of view. It's kind of necessary considering the fact that she and Edward are thinking and seeing two entirely different things. Besides, there's that time when the wolves go off to talk to themselves. Did you really think Bella would give them any privacy? So, here is the same chapter as before, but it's totally different.**

**Hope you enjoy it.**

BPOV

"All of our futures just disappeared."

Fear shot through me at that sentence. What did she mean? She couldn't see anything? If the Cullens were in danger, I wouldn't be able to do anything. I wasn't even here, and I wouldn't be able to get here in time to help in any way. I would have to just watch and pray for them.

No, I could do more. I could at least warn them of what was to come. I could help them in that way, if nothing else.

I ran a lightning fast perimeter around the house, and then started to fan out, my circles growing bigger and bigger with each rotation. It wasn't long before I ran into them. They weren't even trying to be subtle. Nope, the giant wolves trampled sticks and small trees that got in their way, making a deafening racket. Surely the Cullens could hear them from here.

It was about then that I realized how rash I had been. If I had just waited a second more, I could have remembered that Alice couldn't see the werewolves. Heck, it was something I'd used to my advantage ever since they arrived. I could have saved myself a whole lot of panic. Without acknowledging their presence in any way, I ran back to the house to wait for them with everyone else. There was no more danger.

Edward was still interrogating Alice when I got there, and I wondered at how much faster I could run in this form. I never got used to it. Or maybe I would, after all, I hadn't been a vampire for all that long. Yet.

"Is it the same for all of us?" His alarm colored his tone, and I was sorry that I couldn't just tell him that it was the wolves. It would give away the fact that I was able to talk, and I wasn't quite ready for that. It would initiate conversations, and that might make it easier for Edward to figure out that I wasn't just some desperate corner of his imagination that was acting with out permission from the rest of him.

"Yes." She replied. "I have no idea what's on the other side of that door, but I know it's going to kill us. The only thing I don't get is why we're still opening the door even now that I've had the vision. Do they say something that makes us open the door?"

I still had no idea what they were talking about, and I pouted for a second before accepting that it was my punishment for freaking out and running out of the house without even trying to figure out who was coming first. They both turned to look at the clock, gasping. and I gritted my teeth to keep from yelling out. Would it kill them to just randomly recap what they were talking about throughout their conversations? It would sure make this whole living-with-them-secretly thing easier.

"Okay, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but the rest of us have little to no clue as to what's going on right now."

And I was officially in love with Emmett. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. He always hated being out of the loop, and I did too. This form usually helped me with things like that, but Edward and Alice had found the only way to foil my eavesdropping skills. Silent conversation.

When Alice finally began to explain what was going on and what happened in the vision, I was out of the room again. Planning to confront the wolves on not calling earlier and making the Cullens so nervous they were thinking of how they were going to die, it wasn't until I was standing right in front of them that I realized that I didn't want them to know that I was stalking the Cullens. It would make me seem even more pathetic than I already did.

I was also starting to feel guilty for not writing Sam a not either. He must have been freaking out. No wonder he was coming to talk to the Cullens. Where else would I be, if not at home, school, work, or the reservation?

I walked with them all the way to the house with them, and then sped ahead when they got to the yard, preferring to wait inside. With Edward. When they got around to knocking, I noticed Edward shooting me a glance before turning to the door. I tried to look as unconcerned as possible; hoping some of it would rub off on him.

"We need to talk to you bloodsuckers." I flinched. The entire pack knew I hated it when they came up with vampire nicknames. I was gone for a few days-okay, a _month_- and this was what I came back to? I sighed and watched as Carlisle stepped gingerly toward the door.

"Are you insane? Do you want to die?" I rolled my eyes. Rose could be so dramatic. Did she actually think that opening the door would be what would cause their death? If whatever was behind that door could kill a coven of seven vampires, then it could easily break down a door. Of course, _I_ knew that there would be no killing, but they didn't, so it was the same thing.

Sam, Seth, and Jacob looked so uncomfortable when they walked in, I just had to laugh. It quickly cut off, even though I expected what would come out of Sam's mouth.

"What did you guys do to Bella?" The words were harsh and sharp, and left the vampires in the room confused. For a second, they all just looked at each other, and I prayed that Alice would remember what I had told her the other day. It would make everything go so much smoother.

"Bella did mention she hung out with you guys." Thank you Alice. Thank you for being like a sister. For coming to get me that night after Edward left. Thank you for talking to me. And most of all, thank you for remembering that little tidbit, because it was one of the few pieces of truth I ever told you.

"And why did you think this was unnecessary to mention until this moment?" Edward sounded so angry. I couldn't blame him. I knew the answer too, though. It was true, so naturally it would be forgotten. I had lied so much in the past year and eight months that the lies had become more believable than the truth. Alice soon proved my thoughts.

"It was the excuse she used when I asked how she knew what our powers were. I was going to mention it, but then I figured that it was just a way to cover up the fact that she had studied up on us before the Volturi sent her to watch us. I didn't think it was important, and we were already depressed enough, I didn't want to make anything worse." See? Even when the proof of my not lying was in front of her, she thought I was part of the Volturi.

Sam, Seth, and Jacob looked confused.

"I'm sorry." Sam spoke again, and I knew it must be killing Jake and Seth to stand there and remain silent. "If you could please explain exactly what's going on, and where Bella is, it would make this a whole lot easier."

It was kind of sweet that they were going through all this for me, but couldn't help the anger that was spreading through my veins like fire. They would ruin everything I had worked for with their presence. They would probably even tell Edward and his family what was really going on. And I was helpless to stop it.

Alice explained.

"Bella was part of the Volturi. She came here to spy on our family and placed a false memory in everyone's head saying she was Charlie's daughter. That's her power. Anyway, she stayed for a while and then, when she got enough information, she just left. She didn't even bother to erase the memory of her. She prefers to let us all suffer."

The tears flowed down my face, and I did nothing to stop them. There had been no steel to Alice's voice. There was no hate. No anger. It was stated as calmly as a comment on the weather. As if everyone in the world knew that I was some sort of heartless jerk who loved to destroy the lives of others. As if I didn't care, and there was nothing they could do about it, so there was no use getting worked up over it.

Again, Sam spoke, and I thanked him for pulling me out of my pity party before I could fall too far in.

"How did you manage to figure all this out. I'm sure the Volturi doesn't take kindly to their secrets being shared." This was no time for mockery! He was ruining all I had worked for in the past month and a half, and he was too busy enjoying the fact that the Cullens were wrong. Of course, I was also immensely grateful to have such trusting friends that they didn't even spare a thought to the fact that I might be part of the Volturi. They knew me too well. It wasn't even considered.

"She left us a letter." Esme spoke, and the lack of emotion behind the words spoke louder than emotion would have. She still missed me. It hurt. Badly.

"Can we see this letter?" No! Sam was going to ruin _everything_. Edward ran up the stairs and I followed close behind. I'd never seen where they put the letter. I was still running from Felix then. It was kept in a drawer in his dresser. Close enough that he would remember me every time he saw the dresser, but hidden enough that he wouldn't have to feel the pain every moment of every day. Maybe he still wanted to remember me. Maybe he still wanted to love me.

Maybe I was reading way too far into this.

Either way, we were soon back downstairs, and I watched as Sam snatched the paper from Edward, and then sniffed it to make sure it was really from me. I rolled my eyes. I would have chuckled, but there was nothing humorous in this situation. Of course, Sam found everything about it humorous, and even had the nerve to chuckle after he finished reading the note. I prayed he at least had enough sense to block his thoughts, and then I prayed it twice more when the same thing occurred with Seth and Jake. It was the beginning of my undoing.

"May we come back in a few moments? We need to talk this over with everyone. We'll be back in a second." Naturally, Sam had figured out that I was here by now. When Carlisle nodded, he didn't waste a second to run out of the room and into the woods, where the rest of the pack waited.

"Okay Bells. You can come out now." He held out a piece of paper and a pen while the rest of the pack looked at him like he was insane. I grabbed the paper and pen, looked around for a rock to write on, and then just decided to balance the paper on my hand. I ignored the surprised gasps that came with every movement. Just wait. The show hadn't even started yet.

**Actually, nitwit, I can't. At the moment, I'm breathing in water.** He laughed, and I wanted so badly to slap him, that I did, even though he couldn't feel it.

"That's right. I forgot that you're not actually here. Now, can you explain why in the world you wrote that letter? What the heck drove you to do something so idiotic?" All the pack nodded now. They had gotten over the weirdness of this all, and Seth had shifted so they could read the letter, and now they were all caught up with each other.

**Do you think it wasn't without pain and consideration? Besides, it's a long story, and we don't have time to tell it all here. Let it suffice to say that I'm in more trouble than you ever knew, and it came back to haunt me. I had to get away before it could hurt any of you.**

"We can take care of ourselves ya know." He spoke confidently, and I felt bad to burst his bubble.

**It's bigger than you. I have more than half the vampire population after me, and they found me. There is no other option. I had to leave.**

"Do they know where you are now?"

**I have two responses to that. The first is for if you're referring to half the vampire population. Do I look like an IMBICIL? I would not be talking to you if they were on my tail. The second is for if you were referring to the Cullens. No. Well, not really. Edward can see me whenever he closes his eyes, and he can hear me, but he doesn't know that. He also doesn't know it's me. He thinks he's gone insane, the poor thing.**

"So come back."

**If they found me, you would all die. I can't take that risk. I always knew that, I was just too stubborn to see it. We're just lucky they found me when I was out of town or you would already be six feet under.** That one seemed to stump him for a second, but then a look of resolution came over his face, and I couldn't help but groan. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I knew it couldn't be good. He scribbled something on the piece of paper and the shifted and took off toward the house, dropping the paper as he went. I reached down and unfolded it.

_Sorry Bells, but you're worth the risk, and it's about time you learned that._ A growl tore its way out of my throat, and I took off after him. Within seconds I was running beside him, calling out at him, throwing rocks at him, tossing sticks, anything to get him to stop and talk to me before he did something so idiotic. A rumbling chuckle reverberated through the pack, and I shrieked into the wind, since no one else could hear.

Soon, they were knocking on the door to the Cullen's house and walking in without waiting for a response. Sam, Seth, and Jake went in while the rest faded back into the woods. I stalked in after them.

"We have to get Bella back." If I had any blood, it would be boiling at the moment. As it was, my ears were ringing and my head pulsed with a magnificent headache. Instinct took over, and I was about to attack Sam when I felt the familiar tingling that told me Edward was watching. I snarled in frustration. I didn't like to be stopped when I was about to get rid of angry energy. The tingling stopped, and I flew toward the first throwable object in my grasp. Milliseconds later, a vase smashed into the side of Sam's face. Satisfaction flowed through me as I saw the shock on his face, but it was replaced with fury as he started to laugh.

"_How can you laugh at a time like this?"_ My voice shot through three octaves and echoed within the house _"You're ruining everything I've worked for. I've gone through a _month and a half _of agony and you just come in here and render it pointless?"_ I wanted to throw something. No, I wanted to _hurt_ someone. That revelation paralyzed me. I wanted to hurt someone? Maybe I was no better than the Volturi. Maybe that's why they wanted me so bad. Because I actually belonged with them. After all, who else found that the best way to solve a problem was to hurt someone?

But no. NO. I was NOT like the Volturi. I was better than that. I was running from them because I didn't fit in with them. If I hurt someone, I would feel guilty about it later. Besides, I didn't hurt anyone. Not really. Sure, I threw a vase, but that didn't cause any lasting damage. In fact, Sam had healed in less than thirty seconds. I didn't deserve to be part of the Volturi, because I knew what love was. I had what I liked to call my family. I was nothing like them.

I came out of my thoughts in time to see the wolves stop laughing, only to start again. I sighed, but resigned. Boys will be boys, girls will be girls, and werewolves will be werewolves.

"Okay, would someone like to explain what exactly was so funny just now?" Even I had to chuckle at that. I could only imagine what that had looked like from an outsider's view. A flying vase from nowhere that cut open Sam's face and the entire pack starts to laugh hysterically.

"She was just, so _angry_." And they started laughing again. I saw the aggravation on Edward's face, and I knew how he felt. Could they just get over it already? They were ruining my life, knew I was watching, and still thought it was just the funniest thing.

"Who's she? And how did a vase fly through the air like that?" Carlisle was trying to not look confused. Trying to keep his scholarly façade, but I saw right through it. Normally I would have laughed, but now I was just annoyed. If they were going to end the only good thing in my life, they could at least do it fast.

"It was all Bella." I couldn't really be mad at Seth. He was just too young and innocent and new to the pack. He didn't understand what bothered me yet. "She's here, you know." I saw Edward and Esme share a glance and knew that they were finally catching on, though they were probably in denial at the moment. Heck, I would be too if I were them.

"What do you mean?" Esme was trying to sound all put together, but I had spent the past month and a week with her and her family, and I knew her better than that.

"I think you know exactly what we mean. Or, at least, he does." A finger was pointed at Edward, and I had to groan. Couldn't they just tell them that I was in trouble and that I wasn't part of the Volturi and I needed their help or something? No. They had to explain every trick I'd played so that there would be no way to watch them secretly once they turned to wolves down.

"Do you know what he's talking about, Edward?" Oh Alice. How I wish he didn't. I'm sorry for what you're about to hear. I'm sorry I lied every time a word left my mouth. I'm sorry you treated me like a sister and I betrayed you for that.

But, of course, the wolves weren't going to cause me enough embarrassment already. Seth just had to speak up then. "Oh, so _you're _Edward? Sorry. I wasn't here when we renewed the treaty and all that. Then again, I should have figured you were Edward. You're just the kind of person she would fall for, from what I know of her." He ignored all the warnings Sam and Jake were sending him in their glances. I saw the pain shoot across Edward's face-the combination of agony and anger that I now knew came when he thought about the person he thought I was-and knew that I had been wrong before. I could be mad at Seth. It was just as easy as being mad at anyone else was, despite his age.

Alice was trying to sound like she hadn't seen the expression on her brother's face, and I thanked her for that. He needed a moment to calm down without everyone staring at him. "Well, now that that's been established, I'll repeat my earlier question. Do you know what he's talking about Edward?"

"I don't know. I think I might, but it could also all be a coincidence. I never thought much of it before." His voice was as normal as always, and I felt the catch in my heart. He was beautiful, amazing, and perfect in every way possible, and I would never be able to watch him after this day.

"Please just spit it out. What the heck are you talking about?" Emmett was unaffected by the tense atmosphere.

"The first time I saw Bella was at the school dance. We danced together, actually. I was trying to let her go at the time. It failed, but I figured that she was some conjured up by my imagination to make it easier, or harder. I never really figured that out. Then, she was gone for two days, but she came back when I was sitting at the piano. I was playing the song she showed me when Alice came down and made me come up and look at designs with her. Bella followed.

"After that, she was almost always with me. Any time I looked for her, I could see her. She went to school with me. She went home with me. We went hunting together. She was everywhere. I only just told Esme about her today." I hugged him tightly while he spoke, pressing my lips to his shoulder often. Still, I was on my guard at all times, ready to jump back if he happened to close his eyes.

"Wait. You've been hanging out with Bella for the past week and you haven't bothered to tell us? That isn't healthy Edward. You know she was just playing with you. Why would that change? You need to stop seeing her, before this gets even worse." I was mad at first, before I repeated Edward's words in my head and saw where the misconception must have occurred. She must have assumed that I _actually_ came back and saw Edward. Did she really think that I would come back and only visit Edward? Wait. Of course she would, because in her head I was still the kind of person who would leave an entire town without any knowledge of me even when I had the opportunity to clear their memories of my presence there.

"It's not like that. I can see her, she's just not actually _here_." Oh, but I wish I was.

"Oh thanks, that clears everything up." The sarcasm was so thick I could have cut it with a butter knife, but Edward seemed to hear something in it that the rest of us couldn't-or maybe it was in her thoughts-because his eyes softened, and his next words were spoken carefully.

"Look, Alice. I'm insane, okay? That's the problem here. I see Bella in my head whenever I close my eyes. She follows me around. She does everything with me. In my head, she still loves me. I know that she doesn't really, but I don't think my mind can totally accept that yet." And then I kissed him on the lips, really quickly, because I just couldn't help myself.

"I'm right here Edward. I do still love you. I told you that at the dance. I'll never love anyone else, and I would never want to." My words were spoken softly as I stared into his eyes. I wanted to be there right then. I didn't care how much risk it would put on the Cullens. I just wanted to be there comforting Edward.

I was essentially a selfish creature.

Luckily, Seth patted Edward on the back, his hand going right through me, before I could do anything rash. "Don't worry, my friend. You're not as insane as you think. In fact, if everyone here just closes their eyes…" About halfway through that sentence, just as I was pressing another kiss onto Edward's shoulder, my gratefulness for Seth evaporated. He was ruining my moment! Another unfortunate vase was sitting too close to me, and was soon headed on a trajectory towards Seth's head. It shattered against the skin on his face, and sliced him in several places. We were lucky that vampires weren't at all attracted to werewolf blood.

"Chill out! It's for the best. You know you want it too." _Of course I want this too! That doesn't matter. The Cullens could die if I come back. Would you ever willingly leave your imprint? No. But if your leaving would save their life, would you even doubt it for a second? No. Because. You. Love. Her._ Each word was accentuated with a household object. A plate. A lamp. A chair. I watched with interest as each left my hand as crashed against Seth's body. He needed to stop talking.

But he didn't.

"Don't even try to disagree…I've _really_ known you for about a month, and I rarely got to see you even then, and even I know that it's what you want…you're not listening to reason. They need you here and you know it…I don't care whatever ridiculous reason you have for going away. You know that they might come to ask for help anyway. One touch and it's all over." He was talking about Aro. How he might come and ask the Cullens to help him look for me. All he would have to do was touch one of them, and there would be an immediate death sentence. He would know I cared about them. Why else would I lie about belonging to the Volturi? He knew how much I hated the idea. And he would know that I wouldn't be able to get there in time to help them.

"Fine. You obviously won't see reason." _I_ couldn't see reason? He was the one who couldn't see that by telling the Cullens what was going on, he was effectively killing them. "As I was saying before, if you all just close your eyes, I'm sure each and every one of you will see a very livid Bella standing in this very room." Was he kidding me? He had the nerve to mock me? It wasn't until I saw the worried and scared expressions on everyone's faces that I realized how very terrifying I must look. The growls and shrieks that were mutilated before leaving my mouth were uncontrollable though, as were the muscles in my face, and the emotions in my eyes.

Edward was the only one who didn't look very surprised and I realized that he must have seen me building up to this. But he was also staring at my mouth, and I knew that he was hearing me for the first time since the dance. And I didn't even care. I was too mad at Seth. Suddenly, he opened his eyes and sighed in an unnamed frustration. Deciding that I would not be understanding anything that went on with him for a while, I turned to the rest of the family and felt my face relax. They smiled in response, and I waved at them, continuing with the act that I couldn't talk. I turned to Alice and blew her a kiss. Then, I went around and gave a hug to each and every one of them. It wasn't until I was finished that I realized I was crying. When everyone looked concerned, I waved them off.

When Seth started talking again, they opened their eyes, and I had a large urge to strangle him. "She isn't actually there, but she _is_ seeing everything. And hearing. And even feeling everything. It's as if she's actually here, we just can't see her unless our eyes are closed. Don't ask how this is, or why. We really don't know, we just know that it is. You can ask her about it next time you see her. Now, all we really need is a plan."

There was a moment or two of silence when everyone turned to look at their neighbor desperately.

"I think it would be best to have one of the wolves to lead us this time, as they know infinitely more than we do at the moment." Ha. Carlisle was just trying to cover up the fact that he had absolutely no idea what to do right now. Of course, it was a good idea, but it was still a funny thought. Everyone nodded, following the basics of my thought process.

"I think I would be best to lead in this particular situation-" Sam didn't get to finish thanks to Rosalie rudely interrupting.

"Wait a minute. Really? All that just occurred really was that we all closed our eyes and saw Bella in the room with us, and we just assume that it cancels out everything she told us? Am I the only one that needs a little proof before we go traipsing off after a girl that a, told us to stay away from her or we'd _die_ and b, might not want us coming after he anyway? It seems a little sudden, and a lot impulsive. Please, I'm not against going to help her if she needs it, but I honestly don't think she needs it, or wants it. I need a reason to go after the girl who put my family into depression for over a month now, and who broke my brother's heart."

Thank you! At least one person here was seeing reason. I didn't need any saving, and I most definitely didn't need them coming after me. She was the first person to confess even a little distrust of me, and I loved her for it. She, at least, would be able to keep the family thinking logically.

"I'm amazed no one spoke up sooner, honestly." Sam pulled a book out of his pocket, and I ran up and tried to snatch it away before he had the chance to go sharing _that_ with them too. Naturally, he had expected this, and his grip was rather strong. I was unable to get it away from him. "Of course, I was prepared, but I wasn't going to bring it up if no one mentioned it, because it's definitely going to waste time." When he started walking to the couch, I tried again, but he had anticipated that too, and he swatted me away, his hand going right through me, before sitting down. Everyone gathered around him. I groaned and put my head in my hands. This would not be over any time soon.

Thankfully, the first few pages were just of him. It would at least give the Cullens a warning as to what they were going to see next. Soon, however, I was showing up in every picture in the book. It went on and on, and everyone watched in interest at the sped up version of Sam and my childhood. I looked so happy back then, and I wished for that same ignorance to the evils of the world. How easy it had been not so long ago. I never had to worry about when I might have to disappear. I never had to wonder if anyone would ever really love me. If I would go through eternity alone.

The next picture to come up was one with me in my truck. I remembered that thing. It had broken down days after I got back, and I had spent days fixing it myself. It was before I was friends with the wolves again, so I couldn't ask them for help. I hated it now. It was quite possibly the slowest car still running on the Earth today.

Of course, just after that page were the pages the spanned seven months of my not being there. I saw again what I had seen when I first saw Sam again after the change. He had changed so much in my absence. It was only now that I saw it was _because_ of my absence. I was so thankful to Emily for being about to make him happy when I wasn't there to do so.

I remembered my first time back in La Push after the change.

_Flashback_

_I walked up the worn sidewalk that should have been familiar, but no longer was. The hideous scent of werewolf was layered over everything. The gravel made a grinding noise with each step. I saw each grain of dust rubbed off the stones with microscope clarity. From inside the house, I could hear the sound of someone moving around._

_Reaching the door, I was momentarily distracted by the wood. Every minuscule particle that stuck out. The way the setting sun cast a rosy glow through the clouds that brought out richer, deeper tones of color in the oak. A cozy, heartwarming smell wafted from the surface, only slightly tainted by werewolf. I sighed._

_Checking my strength before doing do, I raised my hand and knocked. There was a pause in sound from inside, and then the sound of footsteps coming towards me. For a second, the urge to flee from any approaching thing overwhelmed me, and I was halfway back down the street before I gained control of myself again. I was safe here. No one would look for me here. Yet. I wasn't supposed to be this controlled. I should be somewhere deep in the wilderness praying off defenseless hikers. Fighting myself all the way, I walked, only a little faster than a humans run, and got back to the door right before it was opened._

_I did not recognize the face that appeared from within the shadows behind the door._

_It was a pretty face on one side. There was copper colored skin with black hair. On the other side of her face were three long scars that I recognized. I had some just like them on my abdomen. She had kind eyes that smiled at me for a second, and then froze with fear as she took in my whole appearance. I was a vampire, and she obviously knew that._

_Cocking my head to one side and trying to remember if I'd ever seen her before, I freed my voice from the confines I had placed on it upon entering Forks. "Who are you?" High, and like wind chimes, it sang through the air. I still hadn't gotten used to that. The girl in front of me jumped, and I felt pain shoot through me. This is what I was now. A creature that was feared by all. I was truly a nightmare._

"_Emily Uely." The voice quavered and shook, but there were still musical qualities my new ears allowed me to hear that told me she had a beautiful voice under normal circumstances._

"_Am I to assume you to be Sam Uely's sister?" I questioned. Emily seemed to be baffled by this line of questioning, and I couldn't blame her. It wasn't every day that a vampire showed up at your front door and starts questioning you about your personal life instead of just eating you._

_I heard a strange clicking noise that tugged at my human memories, but I couldn't place it now._

"_Umm…" She seemed to be petrified, and I felt bad for scaring her so badly, but I _really_ wanted to see my best friend again. "His wife, actually."_

_For a second, I was rooted to the spot with shock. Sam had gotten married? He must have imprinted, as he had sworn to me long ago that he would never marry anyone but his imprint. It made me sad to see that life had gone on while I was gone. Of course, I had known it would, but there was a giant difference between telling yourself that people would have gone on with their lives and coming home to see your best friend since birth married._

_There was a rustling sound behind me, and that was the only warning I got before I was knocked into the grass to the side of the house by a giant black wolf. Within second I was pinned, but then instinct kicked in, and I slipped out from under him, flipped over his head, and landed on his back. My teeth were at his neck before I paused._

"_Why are you trying to kill me Sam?" I made my voice as conversational as possible, and then stood up and backed a few steps away from him. "I really don't want to have to kill you, so why don't you run back into those woods, shift back, and we can talk about this, civilized like." He glanced at me, full of confusion, and then sprinted off into the woods, returning seconds later to wrap a protective arm around Emily, who had her hand over her mouth._

"_Well I must say that I was not expecting that sort of welcome." I was trying to tease, though I had lost my edge now that I was constantly depressed. Still, I thought it was worth a shot._

"_Who are you?" He practically snarled._

"_You don't remember me?" I questioned back. _Of course not you dimwit. You're a vampire. We both know you look different now.

"_Should I?" Wow. Everyone just loved talking in questions today, didn't they?_

"_Well, I should think so. It's not just every day you run into the person who's been your best friend since before you can remember."_

_A haunted light appeared in his eyes. "I don't know you." His voice was full of uncertainty._

"_Really? Oh, well that's depressing, considering all the trouble I went through to remember you, Sammy." I turned on my heel and walked away. I had thrown his nickname in there so that there was no doubt as to who I was. Only I was ever allowed to call him Sammy._

"_Bella?" It was a whisper, but my vampire ears heard it well. I rotated slowly on my heel. I tried to smile at him, but it felt out of place with the fears and stress in my heart, and I quickly let it drop from my face._

_Sam was walking towards me slowly. He looked me up and down once, and then stared into my eyes for the rest of the time. He seemed unwilling to look away, as if I might disappear in a puff of smoke. When he reached me, his hand traced the newly defined bone structure on my cheek and seemed to marvel at the cold. I flinched at the warmth that radiated off him._

_His voice was soft. "What happened to you?"_

_I laughed without humor. "I got changed into a vampire."_

_End flashback_

It took him about a day to notice the depression. A confrontation had followed, but I had easily brushed him off, saying I just had to adjust. He had accepted it then, and eventually he had just gotten used to my acting like that. Soon, he stopped commenting on it, because it was just the way I was, and there was nothing that could change that, no matter how badly he wanted it.

I came back from my thoughts just in time to hear everyone gasp. Looking down at the picture, I saw why. It was the first picture of me after the change. Looking at the picture, I recognized the face. It was terrifying, and it was the face I had worn for almost a year before Edward changed my life. It was a look of utter desolation and torture. I looked like the monster I was. It had been just another reason to hide my face. I didn't want to scare anyone. Of course, I got better at hiding it as time went on, but it would still come through every now and then. In fact, Emile seemed pretty good at capturing those rare moments on film.

In the first picture, you could see the precious ignorance in Sam's eyes. After that, he was always looking at me like a mother hen. He seemed so concerned about me, and I felt guilty for putting him through that.

Soon, I stopped coming around to La Push. I had started my college classes to ward against the pain. I looked at the Cullens and saw that every one of them was crying. _See!_ I wanted to yell out. _This is why I left. All I do is cause pain and sadness and endanger people's lives. This is why I want you all to leave, but I know you won't._

And then he turned the page.

I hadn't heard him that day. I hadn't seen him in the hallway as I spun Emily around in circles, celebrating the joy of being in love. Of being happy. I was laughing in the picture, and I was turned to face the camera. I looked happier than I ever had. It was almost like the girl in the picture, and the girl from before were two different people, the happiness made such a difference.

Sam was trying not to cry as he talked. "I couldn't thank the stars and every god listening enough the day she got struck by lightning. She was forced to come and stay with us for a whole week while pretending to visit a special doctor. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done to shield my joy from Edward when he called me to tell me."

I hadn't known.

"What made her smile like this?" Esme brushed the picture with the very tip of her finger, and the care in the action made me cry. Stupid. Stupid. You were trying to not get attached.

There was a clearing of throats. "I didn't listen to the whole conversation. I just remember being shocked at the laughter and running to get the camera so I would have something to look at on the days when I though she would never smile again." Everyone seemed sad that he didn't have an answer. Had someone's eyes been closed, I wouldn't have told them why it was. It would just make it all worse. "That is not to say that I don't have my theories. I may not have heard the conversation, but it wasn't an hour and a half later that she announced something to us after the boys commented on how happy she looked.

"She told us she had fallen in love. She told us that she was in love with Edward Cullen, the vampire." He let that soak in for a moment and then went on. "We were in uproar for a while. We all told her that she shouldn't be around you. That vampires were are mortal enemies and so forth. Of course, within a few minutes she showed us all just how wrong that sounded when we were standing there arguing with a vampire in my own kitchen.

"But that's not the point. The point is that you made her happy. Happy. Do you realize how big that was? The whole pack was completely baffled and thrilled at the same time. We all love Bella like a sister, and it worried us to see her so sad. And then she defended you all like I have never seen her do before. She's not one to stand up for herself. She'll drop subtle hints and let you figure out that you're wrong all by yourself. But she didn't let us say one bad word about any of you. You all changed her."

He had to tell them. He just _had_ to tell them. And he was right too! Slowly, each and every brick that made up my façade was crumbling. Soon, I would be required to tell everything. But still, did I blame him? He was looking for something. I had just seen in the pictures how large an effect my leaving had on him. He would do anything to get me back, and now he had a capable ally.

But was it really necessary to go that far?

"Do you believe me now?" Sam turned to Rose, and I was shocked to notice that she was dry-sobbing. I thought she hated me. When she nodded, I was more angry than surprised. The one person who had agreed with me was now on the wolves' side.

I was my own side.

"Okay, so now that that's cleared up, we need to go find Bella, who is _not_, by the way, part of the Volturi, though it was a clever lie. One that would ensure your staying here." Jacob spoke now, smashing another brick with his words. Already, I could feel the truths wanting to be told squeezing through the cracks in the mortar.

They would be out soon.

**A/N: So, there it is. Sorry it took so long, but it was a hard part to pin down.**

**I would like to thank all the well wishers for my DC trip. It was amazingly fun.**

**I just got back from church where I got to perform a skit in front of the entire congregation. It was so much fun.**

**This extra long (14 page) chapter is a reward for being so patient with me. Hope you all enjoyed it. If you did, or even if you didn't, just click that little button down below this.**


	14. Chapter 13

EPOV

This was so much harder than any one of us had expected. Bella was right there, in the room with us. We couldn't plan anything out loud, and we couldn't text ideas or pass notes because she could just read over our shoulders. We had agreed to discuss everything we could out loud, but after two hours of nothing; everyone was getting a little impatient.

"Well, she's hiding under water somewhere." Sam was the one to speak up, and everyone turned to look at him, not trying to hide the fact that they were disbelieving at the moment.

"How did you manage to think that?" Alice was the first to speak up, asking the question on all of our minds. I was honestly just shocked that Emmett hadn't been the one to blab.

"That's what we were doing earlier when we left for a few seconds. I had a quick conversation with her that went no where. Of course, I didn't expect anything different of it, but that's irrelevant. What matters now is just a casual comment she threw in there. I had told her she could come out, forgetting all the particulars about her gift, and she had simply said that she was breathing in water right then."

"So that means she's hiding either in an ocean, lake, or something of the sort. Great. That means there's only ¾ of the world she could be in." Rose's voice was layered with sarcasm. "And even better, we can't even plan incase she hears and plans accordingly.

"Not entirely." Everyone turned to look at me. "We're not completely without advantage. I can read everyone's minds. Alice can see the future. We could plan using that."

Two voices spoke up to disagree. "And just how do you propose we do that?" and "But I still can't _see_ anything!"

"Can you see Bella?" The thought had just come into my head.

"Only sort of. I already tried before. It's really weird. I see two different places at the same time. It blurs together sometimes and gives me a major headache." She showed me an example. It was like her vision was split in half. In one half, we could see Bella at the bottom of some body of water. The other part was completely blank.

"Hmm. Well, she's still with us right now." I closed my eyes to make sure I was right. "Yep. And that's the part you couldn't see?" She nodded. "And when did our future disappear?"

"As soon as the wolves showed up." Understanding washed over her face just as I knew it would. Once you lined up the facts, it was really quite easy to figure it all out. We said it at the same time, with a slight variation on the pronoun.

"You can't see the wolves." I closed my eyes out of habit and saw that Bella was clapping her hands in a very slow, exaggerated motion. She was also laughing. I pointed an accusing finger at her. "You knew! You already knew and didn't tell us?"

She rolled her eyes, gestured at her mouth and then crossed her arms. I took that to mean something along the lines of 'Of course I didn't. I can't talk. What're you gonna do about it?'

"Okay, so now that we know that, does it mean that we will have to split up?" Carlisle posed the question and I considered it before finding it unnecessary.

"No. Here's the plan. We all get to sit here and try and think of a good way to track down Bella. Alice will be in charge of watching the future. If Bella's future either completely disappears or she ends up with us, then we all have to stop. Well take turns starting in on one plan at a time until we figure out which one triggered the vision. Then it will be Alice's and my job to communicate instructions to everyone, along with the person who came up with the plan. Hopefully, this will be enough so that Bella doesn't know exactly what's going on."

For a moment, everyone disagreed with me in their mind, but one by one they all reasoned that it was the only way that would work, at least for now.

We all commenced to planning. For hours we sat there, staring off into space. Alice checking the future, everyone else thinking, and me switching between the two. It wasn't until the sun had gone down and was peeking back up over the horizon that Alice shot from her seat, announcing that Bella's future had disappeared. It took another hour to find out that it was Sam's plan that had worked. The sun was safely hidden behind the clouds by then.

I heard his thoughts calling out to me then. _Go tell Carlisle it's time to call up a new friend. Tell Esme to pack her bags for Volterra. Tell Alice we're going to ask the Volturi for help so she can spread the word._ I didn't question how he knew about the Volturi. Of course Bella would have told him. He was her best friend. Besides, if he was going to be in charge of hunting and killing vampires, he should know their rules. I followed his instructions perfectly and soon everyone was aware of the news. I closed my eyes to see if Bella was too, and looked around frantically when I saw that she wasn't there anymore. Opening the door, I saw her practically flying across the yard and into the forest. Obviously, she had heard us. I turned to follow her, but at a mind command from Sam, I whipped around again and followed her as fast as I could.

It only took a few minutes for her to lose me, but I had still traveled miles in that time. We had shot south, constantly moving in a slow diagonal toward the coast of California. She never once turned around to see if she was being followed. I had to mirror her every movement to doge trees and rocks I couldn't see with my eyes closed. When she was entirely out of my sight, I stopped and stood, waiting for the rest of my family to catch up, as Sam had called out for me to do once I left.

It took the rest of them a few more minutes before they caught up. When they did, I gave them an update.

"She's headed for the coast of California. Do we run there and look for her?" Everyone turned to Sam for the answer.

"Yes to the first part, no to the second. We'll run to the coast of California, but we have to keep an eye out for her the whole time. She'll be moving again for fear that the Volturi will find her."

"Wait, so are we going to Italy or not?"Emmett didn't understand. In fact, even I really didn't know what was going on. Now that the plan flickered through Sam's head again, I caught on, but until then I'd had no idea.

"We're not going to Italy, Emmett." Sam spoke, and it was strange to see even Carlisle look to him with loyalty and respect. "We're following Bella to herself. It's hard to explain exactly what we're doing. It has a lot to do with her talent, and I think I'll leave that story for her to tell. Now, we have to hurry to California. Let's hope that she made a big enough impression on people so that we can ask about her. All we'll have to do then is pick up her scent and we can follow it to her. You might not be able to smell her right now, but she has to move all of her now, so you'll be able to catch her scent later."

The rest of my family exchanged glances as if they were surprised that the wolves could be so smart. I just took off in the direction Bella had gone in. I _would _find her. I loved her with every part of my being, and being this far from her for so long, now that I knew she was in love with me too, was literally torture.

The wolves were faster than the rest of my family, but not faster than me. They ran between us, and we made it to California in a few hours, but we didn't reach the coast for another hour. We asked around, discovering that she had left over an hour ago. According to some of the people on the beach, they had been sitting there when a cloud went over the sun. Just then, a girl came up out of the water and walked into the nearest clothing store.

It had passed out of many people's memories, but the few who had taken notice had been very helpful. We now knew what she was wearing and which direction she had gone. That's how we caught her scent. Soon we were sprinting off, me in the lead, following the most beautiful scent in the world. I pushed myself. Faster. Faster. Our greatest fear was that Bella would hide herself and then come to watch us try to find her. Sam assured us that it would take her a little while to find us, but it was still a problem. She was infinitely faster than any of us when she was invisible, and it wouldn't take her that long to get back to her hiding place and move on. Eventually, it would have to rain, and then the trail would wash away.

No, we had to catch her, and soon.

It was three days into the chase. We had run down through Central America and into South America. I didn't know exactly what country we were in at the moment, and I didn't care. I just wanted to get moving again, but the wolves had been going and going for three days without sleep, and they needed it now. Sam had gone off to find a fast food restaurant. Looking closely, I could see him coming back towards the cheap hotel we were in now. He glanced up at the windows and saw me watching, waving me down.

When I got outside, he immediately started talking. "Take this." he handed me a pad of paper and a pencil. "Go back behind the hotel and sit down. Set these on the ground in front of you. Then wait." He turned and walked inside, leaving me without explanation and completely baffled. Confused, I followed his instructions and went around to the back of the hotel. I set the things down and looked around. There were a few rough-looking people talking rapidly in Spanish and smoking cigarettes. After I had ascertained that none of them were the reason I was back there, I bared my teeth at them, growled when no one moved, and set them scuttling off.

I glanced back down at the paper and saw that there was now writing on it. Shocked, my head jerked up, making sure that everyone had left like I had originally thought. They all had. I was all alone. Yet the paper...

_Promise you'll remain silent until I finish talking?_ It made no sense to me, but I scribbled my answer underneath. At the worst, I could just break my promise.

**Yes.**

_You know you don't have to write. I can hear just fine. _I watched in disbelief as the pencil moved on its own accord, words scrawling from its tip. Of course. I recognized the handwriting as Bella's now. But she was here? Surely she realized we were following her by now. Why wasn't she running and hiding in a new place and waiting for rain? The pencil kept moving and I peeked at the new words. _Close your eyes._

I did as she asked, and there she was, in all her beauty. She looked more human when she was in this form. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were moist, though she wasn't crying. She gave me a smile, but there was pain and bitterness behind it.

"Wh-" I was going to ask her why she was sad, but she had her insubstantial finger up against my lips before I could get the first word out.

"Shhh." She whispered. Her face was right in front of mine, and she had on a gentle smile. I longed to feel her breath wash across my face. "You promised you wouldn't talk." Every word was soft and breathy. She looked at me with eyes that kindly reprimanded me. She seemed so ethereal in the moment, and I smiled to know that she loved _me._ My thoughts were cut off when she started talking again.

"Edward, I'm here as a last plea. I know you're following me. I know you know that I love you and I know you won't stop looking for me until you find me. I can't lie to you anymore. Sam will be able to disprove all of them. So, I'm going to be completely honest." She took a deep breath, steeling herself.

"Edward, I want you to stop chasing after me. I want you to turn around and go home. Edward, I was in Forks because I was hiding. I'm in so much more trouble than you could ever imagine. You don't have to feel guilty for driving me out. I was leaving in a few weeks anyway.

"You need to go back to Forks, back to your life, and never close your eyes again. I need to disappear, and I don't want your family to have to go through that with me. Please, stop coming after me. I don't want you to find me, because it puts you in danger too.

"There. I got it all out. You're allowed to talk now." She stood there, waiting, but for a few minutes I had nothing to say. There was an overload of information. She was in danger? Since when? And did she really think that would get rid of me? If anything, it made me want to find her all the more, and protect her. I opened my mouth to say so, but what came out was completely different.

"You can talk like this?" I hadn't realized it had been bothering me, but now that I had said it, it was in the forefront of my mind. All this time, she had been able to talk, and she hadn't. I had gone over a month without hearing her voice, and it turned out that it was only because of a whim.

"Don't be mad." She pleaded. "I couldn't! It would have led to questions that I wasn't ready to answer. Besides, it's partially your fault for not catching on when I talked to you at the dance." She was teasing me, but her heart wasn't in it. I accepted her answer with a nod.

"Okay. Why are you here? Don't get me wrong, I love that I get to talk to you, but I don't get it. Why don't you just run and hide until the rain comes and washes away your scent and no one can find you?

She gave a self-mocking smile. "You underestimate my self control. I could never stay away from you. You would simply have to close your eyes at any moment and I could take you to me, and then this whole thing would start all over again. That's why I need your promise to not come after me ever again. Please. Keep yourself safe. Keep your _family_ safe. Because Edward, they will kill them. They will find out who you hold dearest and they will kill them all, and make you watch. For the sake of your family, stop this ridiculous, suicidal chase and go home."

I smiled back at her. "And you underestimate _my_ self control as well. I love you too much to leave you here to face whatever danger you're faced with. I want to be there with you to help you get through whatever it is you're going through. I don't want to leave you again." My hand reached out on its own accord to brush her cheek, but it went right through, and her smile turned rueful.

"At least talk to your family. This no longer concerns only you." She leaned forward, mimicking my earlier motions, but now that I was watching her, a faint tingle shot down my spine as her finger brushed lightly along my face. Then, she pulled back and gestured toward the hotel, making it clear that was my cue to go inside. I stood, then turned back to say goodbye.

She was already gone.

Sighing, but accepting that that was probably how it was always going to be for her, I headed back to the small room my family was waiting in. No one noticed my entrance. No one responded in any way. Every one of them was busy staring into their significant others eyes-some more lustfully than others. I could tell that they would all prefer if I had just stayed outside a few moments long. In that moment I seriously considered running back out of the room and chasing after Bella on my own, but I realized that I still loved them. They had been my constant companions for the past 92 years. I couldn't just endanger their lives while I sacrificed it all on a chase that would cause it all.

No.

I cleared my throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but I just had a very interesting conversation with the lovely Bella." That got their attention real quick, and soon I was able to tell my story. I gave them a brief overview of the conversation and finished by posing the question Bella had asked me to. "So, Bella made it quite clear that we were risking our lives in following her. Do we still follow her?"

"I'll pretend that question is rhetorical, Eddie-boy, to preserve what little honor I have." Emmett's mind backed him up 100%. _If he thinks I'm going to leave my little sister just because some danger got in the way, he's got another think coming. We can take anything the world throws at us, but there's no way Bella can survive it on her own._

"I'm in." _You should know better than that Edward. She's my best friend. _Alice.

"If Alice goes, I'm going too."

"It'll be nice to finally have all my family back together." That's right. Esme had never seen Bella and I at the same time.

"Of course we'll help her." Carlisle. Of course.

"I don't want to have to spend the rest of eternity feeling guilty for not helping her." And if Rosalie would feel guilty for not doing something, that's when you knew you were going what was right.

I closed my eyes again and saw Bella standing in the room with us, tears drawling paths down her cheeks. She turned to me.

"You're going to come after me despite the risk." The words were disbelieving, but then her expression hardened. "Don't think that means I'm going to make this easy for you. You better be prepared for the hide-and-go-seek game of your life." Then she ran out of the room and was gone. I almost followed her, but knew we had to wait for the dogs to wake up before we could leave.

I turned to Alice. "You can see Bella, right?"

"Yes."

"Can you see where she's planning on hiding next?"

She stared off into the distance and I watched the vision unfold. As of right now, we saw Bella climbing off of a random roof in suburbia and take off south. Just then, the vision shifted. We watched as she ran through a field of corn, when suddenly, a vampire I had never seen before came up behind her and grabbed her. The vision went black soon after.

"She dies?" I couldn't stop the roar that flew through my lips.

"I don't know! Why can't I see?" Alice was panicking. In fact, even the people in the room who couldn't read minds were freaking out. It was fairly easy to catch on.

It was impossible to wait any longer. Alice used her fingernail to scratch the word _Bella_ into the floorboards for the wolves and we took off without bothering to check out.

It was torture to be the fastest runner there. I had to stay near Alice so I could stay up to date on the newest visions. Plus, we had to be able to find our way to wherever Bella was going to be attacked, and I had no idea as to where it was located.

"Hurry up already." I called over my shoulder.

"You think we would be running this slow if it were in any way possible to run faster? It's not like we enjoy waiting to see whether or not our sister dies. You're not the only one who loves her Edward." Emmett was frustrated with his slow running. I couldn't blame him.

"Alice, do we actually have any idea as to where we are going?" Carlisle was the one to try and get us to make a plan.

"Sort of. As of right now, I know we need to go north. I'll work on the rest as we run. You know, how hard can it be?" The last part was thrown out casually, and I believe that I was the only one to know exactly how hard this was going to be for my little pixie of a sister. Running and searching the future would take skill.

I moved back in my running, claiming I wanted to make sure to be close to Alice so I'd be sure to hear when she got a vision. In reality, I was running right in front of her so she could hear where to go while she stared off into the distance.

It wasn't long until we saw the vision again. This time, it happened in a gas station. Bella was passing through when the man walked in and grabbed her by the elbow, leading her out. The vision went black soon after.

It was sooner than the first one.

Luckily, there had been a street sign and the gas station's sign shown in the vision. I recognized them almost immediately. Bella was in Rio, right near where I had hidden only a few months ago. It seemed like so much longer.

"I know that place!" Alice stumbled slightly, but kept going before anyone else could notice. "It's near where you all found me after the plane crash."

We adjusted our course slightly, but it was nothing major. Throughout the rest of the run, the future shifted between us getting there first and the other vampire getting there first.

I had no idea what I would say to her once I got there. Unfortunately for me, I had a long run to think about it. _Hey Bella. I know you warned me to leave you alone, but if we don't leave soon a strange vampire is going to come in and take you away. We think you die after that._ I don't know. Somehow that seemed a little too blunt. _Bella, before you run away, I'm here to protect you. Please, just come with me away from here. I don't want you to get hurt._ No, that sounded like I was threatening her. Besides, it wasn't very convincing. Most likely she would run before I could finish.

There were no correct words. I would just have to try my best when I got there and hope that she saw the desperation in my eyes. I prayed to a GOD I knew I didn't deserve that she would listen to me. That we would get there first. That she would be safe and she would come home with us. I prayed that even though I didn't deserve it, GOD would answer my prayers. If only to protect one so precious as Bella.

It took the werewolves a long time to wake up, and I was glad that we hadn't waited for them. There wouldn't have been enough time. Sam called me on my cell phone, and we had a quick but heated conversation.

"Hello?"

_What the h*** were you thinking? Do you think Bella means more to you than she does to us?_

"Alice had a vision. It couldn't wait."

_Oh. So that's it. Little Alice has a vision and suddenly your only allies don't even matter?_

"It's dangerous for you to be with her."

_You think she didn't have that talk with me too? Why do you think going to the store took me so long? We all know exactly what the risk is, or close enough._

"Look. I don't have time for this." My voice was stressed, but not angry. "I can see where we need to be. I have to get Bella."

I snapped the phone shut just as we reached the entrance to the gas station.

**A/N: Okay. I had a little epiphany the other day as I realized that I was spending way too much time on FanFiction. I love it dearly, but I am quite clearly obbcessed. While that normally wouldn't bother me, the big dance at my school is coming up, and it's time to do something active ladies and gentlemen.**

**So, I'll still be updating, just not as much.**

**Love you all (please review)**

**School-is-my-purgatory**


	15. Chapter 14

BPOV

The tears were running down my face. I did nothing to stop them. Honestly, I sat there and welcomed the feeling of water tracing paths down my cheeks. I think this was the thing I missed most about being human. It was so refreshing to let your sadness and worries out in a physical form. I cried, and my chest shook, and it felt the same way it had when I was human.

I had felt this sensation only once before. When you laughed and cried at the same time. I had been thirteen, and I was babysitting a dog for my neighbor. He was a tiny little thing, but really yippy. I had never been scared of dogs exactly, but I had a healthy respect for all animals and generally avoided picking them up or making them angry.

Anyway, I was looking after him, and I had set my coat to hang on the hand rail when he saw it. Remembering it now, I could see how it looked like a person. However, at the time, I had just been confused. And then the dog started barking at me, and I was scared, and I started to cry. Then I was hiding behind a chair and I was looking at this dog, which was probably 9 inches tall, and I was crying because I was scared, and then I started laughing.

It's a strange feeling. It's like hiccupping constantly without a pause in-between. A strange catch in your chest that sort of hurts, but mainly just feels weird.

So now I'm sitting here, on this log in the forest. I just finished talking to Edward. He's not going to let it rest. He's not going to let me go. For a moment, the joy of having someone love me unconditionally clouded my thinking, and I simply reveled in the wonderful feeling of belonging. Then, I forced myself up and brushed my hands over my pants, more out of habit than anything. I was insubstantial when I was like this. There was no dirt on my pants.

UGH! The disadvantage of being practically a newborn was that I could rarely force myself to stay on one train of thought. Except when I was around Edward. It seemed like his presence allowed me to focus. He was calming and he was patient. Then again, this was probably all because he was the only thing I was able to think about when I was near him. I'm sure if you had asked me to think of anything else in his presence, it would be even worse than normal.

Shaking my head, I made myself return to the problem at hand. I needed to move on again. I needed another hide out. How long would this go on before Edward caught up with me? Because he surely would. And then I would have no choice but to go back with him. Seeing him in person would take away all my will power.

I shook myself and took off into the forest. I think it would be better to not think at all for the next while. Setting that thought firmly into my mind, I focused on counting the number of cells in a leaf as I passed by, and that took up enough concentration that my mind was blank until I arrived back at my body.

When I finally found myself off the coast of Argentina, I didn't pause to reorient myself in my old body. It was always hard after a long run in my other form to return with normal limitations. But I couldn't pause today. Edward was now officially faster than me, so I would have to run extremely quickly to keep the head start I had now.

As I ran, I decided where exactly I wanted to hide next. I briefly considered going back up to the US and hiding out on a roof in some unfinished neighborhood. Maybe I could head into Nebraska. There were lots of fields there to get lost in too. No one would notice, and if I didn't mind getting wet from the sprinklers every now and then, it would be ideal.

It was about then that I smelled the vampire. Looking up in shock, I brushed it off for a second, realizing I was right around where Edward had hidden. I thought it was one of the Cullens. It wasn't until I ran a little further that I got a real whiff of it. It was only a few hours old. I had never smelt it before.

What was a vampire doing here? There was no way that the vampire had been here a few months ago. Edward wouldn't have hidden in another vampire's territory unless he had a death wish.

Maybe it was a newborn. But they were dangerous and violate. I would know. I was a newborn myself. Maybe they were created not that long ago and had been attracted here by the many pounding hearts and dark corners. I knew how to fight. I could handle myself quite well, actually, but I was nervous about this. Something didn't feel right. Besides, if I did have to fight this newborn, and if I won, I would need to be able to light the pieces on fire.

_This is just a precaution. I'm just being paranoid. This is completely unnecessary. In fact, the only reason I'm doing this is because I lost my last lighter anyway and I need a new one. Why not stop now? _A girl could lie to herself when it was needed, right?

I walked into a gas station as I passed by. A teen boy sat behind the counter and I groaned. This was going to be an annoying transaction. Sure enough, as soon as he looked up from the magazine he was reading, his eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open.

Know it would make this easier in the end, and hating myself for doing it, I looked up at him from under my eyelashes and smiled a flirty smile. He wasted no time in smiling back, a cockiness entering his eye that wasn't there before.

I winked.

"I need a lighter." I said, my voice intentionally alluring. I made my eyes burn. It would have helped if they were gold, but I hadn't hunted for weeks, and they were pitch black. Still, it did the trick, and his brain was obviously scattered. I reached out and grabbed a lighter, putting it on the counter. He looked at it for a second, then pushed it back into my hand. He waved toward the door, and even though we didn't speak the same language, I knew that we had communicated well enough.

I smiled at him and bent forward to kiss him lightly on the cheek and then walked out of the gas station...

...and promptly ran into a brick wall.

And then there were steel arms around my waist and I was unable to see and we were flying through the city. I didn't know who it was for a few moments, but then I took a deep breath through my nose and recognized the scent. If I had been human, my heart would have taken off like a hummingbird's. I knew this scent, and it wasn't Edward's.

**A/N: End. There. That's it. That's all there is to it, so just**

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**JUST KIDDING! DON'T HATE ME. HERE'S THE REST OF THE CHAPTER**

It was Emmett. I struggled against the cage his arms made around me, but there was no point. He was stronger than me, now that most of my newborn strength had faded. So I just sighed and consented to being carried like an oversized bag of potatoes. He chuckled as he felt the change in my demeanor.

"You done fighting Bells?" he teased, but I didn't feel like smiling. Edward had come after me, just like he had said he would. That thought brought a slew of emotions. I was happy. He loved me. I was sad. He was putting himself in danger. I felt insignificant. I hadn't been able to avoid him for long. I was panicked. He could get hurt for this. Killed. And overall, I just felt odd. It had been so long since I had been willing to trust anyone. Yet Edward was coming through for me over and over again.

"I can walk Emmett. Besides, at worst I run off and Edward catches me before I get five steps away." he pulled a bandana off my eyes-silk, my guess was Alice-and grinned down at me. "You are exceptionally light my dear sister."

I grimaced. "I wasn't always the best eater, especially not before I was changed."

"About that Bella," Edward cut in. He was whispering right in my ear. How I had not noticed his approach was a mystery, but my stomach was too busy doing flips to pay much attention. "You're going to have a lot of explaining to do. You've said it yourself. We're putting ourselves in danger, and I would personally like to know what I'm up against." I didn't know whether he was trying to be extremely distracting, but he was certainly doing a good job regardless.

But he was right. "I know, I know. I owe you guys the full story." There was an awkward pause. It was strange. Edward and I had fallen for each other over a distance, and now that we were together, we didn't really know what to do. Luckily, I thought through all this with the speed of a vampire, and there was only a second's rest before I grabbed Edward's hand and gestured for him to lead the way.

He started off out of the city, and I looked around and noticed the rest of the Cullens all standing around too. Whenever Edward was in the vicinity, there was nothing else worth seeing.

But I forced myself to focus.

Alice was positively beeming. Rosalie was scowling, but there wasn't any smoke coming out of her ears, so I figured we were still pretty good. Emmett was watching me and chuckling occasionally for reasons I could not see. Carlisle was looking at me curiously, but not unkindly. Esme was staring at my hand, where it was intertwined with Edwards. I think she was actually glowing with pride.

So it seemed like overall they weren't that mad at the disappearing act I had just pulled. Of course, that wouldn't last for long. They might think they were being all loyal and honorable, but it woldn't be worth it once they figured out exactly why I had run in the first place. Even Edward would probably not be able to look at me.

I squeezed his hand tighter, savoring the time I was allotted.

Maybe this was what I was destined for. A lifetime of sadness and depression interspersed with moments, sometimes even days of extreme happiness. The moments when I would be allowed to be in Edward's presence.

Fortunately, Alice soon stopped me from continuing down this path of thought. "Um…Edward? I don't mean to ruin your happy reunion or anything, but we should really get out of here before…um…"she coughed. "_he_ gets here." They all shared a significant glance that shot my annoyance meter up to high.

Apparently, Edward saw this on my face when he turned to look at me, because he got to work comforting me. "I would be frustrated too Love, but we need to get back home before we do any explaining. Apparently, you're not the only one who needs to do a little story-telling." And then I was too busy swooning over the fact that he had called me _Love _to notice anything else. We started serious running and I floated along happily for a long while before I was able to think about anything else.

When I finally came back to Earth and thought about my situation, I realized that Edward was still holding my hand even as we ran, and that I would have the whole run back to Forks with him before I sent him running. I floated for another long time. It felt like the only thing keeping me on the ground was Edward's hand, clasped tightly in mine.

It was the happiest I had ever been in my life. It worked like a soothing balm. Covering all my memories that I'd ever had. It moved through each one; making the good ones glow even more than they had before, and making the bad ones not seem so terrible. It found all the unhealed wounds from past experiences and took their pain away. They weren't gone yet, but I felt that maybe if I remained like this indefinetintely, they would go away. Edward would take care of them.

And just like that my happy bubble popped. I was an unwanted and rather plain vampire girl who had hardly any worldly experience and was in love with someone who would never be able to love all of her. Sure Edward loved me now, but he didn't know all of me, and the other part of me was surely enough to overpower the rest.

We stopped at a hotel as we neared the border. Sam, Jacob, Seth and the rest of the pack were waiting for us there, and I was once again glad, for they could not run as fast as a vampire, and it would give me even more time.

XxX

The next days flew by in whirls of color defined by the rise and fall of my happiness. We were about a day's run away from Forks when the wolves finally admitted that they needed to rest again. The Cullens promptly set about complaining, but I was grateful.

We all had to share a room with only one other person. Pairs split off and the wolves refused to try and sleep in a room with any vampire other than me. They claimed to have gotten over my smell, but the rest of the vampires still smelled bad. I thought they were still just prejudice.

Edward and I were put together, and I had no complaints. For the first couple hours after everyone had retreated to their room, I was content to just stare at Edward. It wasn't until I realized how uncomfortable that must make him feel that I stopped. I looked around for something to do and noticed that I had left my iPod at Charlie's for the first time since the plane crash.

I groaned. Edward looked up curiously. "I forgot my iPod when I went over to your house with Alice, and I haven't gone back since. I have nothing to do now."

"Well, you could just continue to stare at me unabashedly. You didn't seem to mind that a few minutes ago." A teasing smile flickered at the edges of his mouth and I momentarily lost my train of thought before I realized I should be looking embarrassed right about now.

But before I could act on that revelation, Edward was suddenly sitting next to me. He had his iPod out, and he handed me a headphone. I stared at his hand for a moment before taking the proffered object. At first he played songs that I had heard many times before-Fur Elise, Clair de Lune, Moonlight Sonata-but then he switched over to songs I was sure had never been on the radio. I looked at him in askance and was shocked to see him looking embarrassed.

"Umm…theses are my compositions." He scratched the back of his neck as he said this in an adorable show of self-consciousness. Just then, an incredibly sweet song started playing out of the tiny ear buds. "You inspired this one." He whispered it, but I heard it anyway.

For a moment, I was just caught in his eyes. They stared back into mine like golden lava. He had been able to feed a few days ago. And his golden orbs were staring into mine and I felt like I was floating and then he was kissing me and I was kissing him and I still had the iPod playing in my ear. Playing the song that he had written for me, and nobody else. It was only Edward. It was only Edward and I and it didn't matter than I was in danger, or that we really should be moving right now, or even that if they caught up to us I would be killed. Because really, why did that matter when I had _Edward_? When I had everything I needed?

It was over in seconds, but they seemed to last for a lifetime of their own. We stared into each other's eyes for a little while longer. Finally, Edward bent down and brushed his lips lightly across my own. A feather-like touch that scrambled my already scattered newborn thoughts.

"I've wanted to do that since the day you came back to school after getting hit by lightning." And his voice officially completed the moment. I let my eyes flutter closed and a sigh escaped my lips. I savored the moment. Committed it to memory. I would never forget it. I would make sure of it. I would capture it and maintain it and I would be able to look back on it whenever I wanted to, no matter what situation I was in, and I could know that, at least for a second, I had been happy.

"I love you." I whispered. It seemed so natural to say in that moment. I pressed my forehead against his and his breath whooshed across my face, smelling of lilacs and honey and sunlight. His eyes were closed and a blissful smile graced his face. I committed that to memory too, vowing to sketch it later.

"I love you too. So much." He said it surely, like it had always been true. Like it had been written into the stars at the creation of the world. Like it had always been. Like it always would be.

I kissed him again.

XxX

We held hands as we ran the next day too. I wondered how I had gone on without him. How had I even run before? Surely my balance had been thrown off by my lack of my other half.

We got back to Forks that night. I didn't know why it had been necessary to come back here, but I wasn't going to speak up. The wolves were practically dead on their feet. The sleep they got last night hadn't been nearly enough to compensate for the amount of running they were doing.

"Go home Sam. Take the pack home and command them all to sleep for a day." I said, looking at the black wolf in the front of the pack. "We'll be fine. Besides, you'd be more of a hindrance than a help in this state. Go rest. You won't be able to help me later if you haven't slept for days." I made a shooing motion and he rolled his eyes, but he stumbled off, already half-asleep.

"So, I guess I owe you guys an explanation?"

"I should think you do after we chased you practically halfway around the world." Edward murmured in my ear. I felt a brief tingle run down my spine before dread seeped in to take its place. I was going to have to open up, after all these months of hiding the truth I was going to tell someone.

Edward squeezed my hand as we walked through the door into a living room I had been in once before.

We sat down on the various couches. Edward and I got the loveseat, but I was too nervous to be pleased.

"Okay, where do I start?" I was thinking out loud, but Carlisle answered anyway. He was leaning forward in his seat like a child at Christmas.

"How about you start from when you went missing."

"No, no. I'll have to start much earlier than that." I was thinking out loud once again. "I could start the day before…no, it started before that…maybe I should start with…but that wouldn't make sense…or I could just…" I sat up straight. I would begin at the beginning.

"Okay…" I squared my shoulders to prepare for what was surely coming.

EPOV

She looked like she was preparing to walk to the electric chair. I didn't think she even felt my hand any more.

"Okay." She said again. "I think I'll just have to give you a quick summary of my life first. I was born to Charlie and Renee Swan here in Forks. When I was about three, my mom left my dad. She wanted to take me with her, but Charlie wouldn't give me up. Not me _and_ her.

"I grew up with a relatively normal life. A lot of other kids had divorced parents. I wasn't that out of place. I made friends with a girl named Angela Weber. She and I bonded over being outcasts. I was even friends with Jessica Stanely for a little while, but that didn't last too long.

"However, before we stopped hanging out, she met a guy. She was just friends with him, but she tried to set the two of us up." A growl slipped out, but she continued on as though she hadn't heard it. "I went on one date with him. That was it. He freaked me out way more than I thought possible, and I left as soon as it would be considered polite. I hadn't had any fun, but I couldn't deny that he had been gorgeous, and strangely intense when he was talking to me.

"I got home and went about life as normal for a few weeks before I started noticing little things. The window would be open when I woke up when I was sure I had closed it. The door was suddenly closed when it had been open seconds ago. Strange winds blew through the house when the air outside was dead.

"I should have seen it. I should have paid more attention, but it all only made sense later when I looked back. He was following me. One day, he showed up after school. He was standing by my truck as I came out late from going over an assignment with a teacher. At first I was scared. How had he figured out where I went to school? Of course, Jessica might have told him. I wasn't sure if they were still hanging out.

"He said he wanted to talk. That he wanted to go on another date with me, and was sorry for his odd behavior last time. I told him no. For a second, he just cocked his head and looked at me funny. The next thing I knew I was flying through the air unable to see what was ahead of me.

"We traveled all night long. I was exhausted, but there was no way I was going to sleep. I watched, as his eyes slowly got darker and darker. Eventually, he stopped and fed for the first time. I was out cold for the rest of the journey. Blood loss does that to you, I found out." A low hiss slithered across my tongue. Carlisle raised his hand and looked like he might burst if Bella didn't answer his question. She nodded in his direction.

"You said he fed, and that there was blood loss. Are you implying that he was a vampire?"

"That's exactly what I'm implying, actually."

"But why would he want to kidnap a human?"

"I'm getting there. Now, I don't mean to be rude, but if you guys could refrain from asking questions until I'm done, it's really hard to relive these memories." She waited until we all made some sign of agreement before continuing. "When I woke up, I was in a cabin and my captor was no where to be seen. He had tied me up with a giant rope that he had melted into a loop around a metal loop in the wall.

"He came back soon, and the next month was terrible. I got one meal a day, as he couldn't be bothered to steal any more than that. I was tied up all day. I got twitchy and bored. I lost so much weight I usually felt more like a ghost than a human.

"The whole time I was there he was explaining everything I would ever want to know about vampires. He made it clear that I would be turned into one soon and that he had a purpose once I was changed.

"He fancied himself a scientist of sorts. He had experimented with many humans before me, and he wasn't all that worried about killing me. He just wanted to hone his technique. He was drinking from me as often as I could stand it. He would feed until I passed out, then talk to me as I recovered. As soon as I was healthy enough to walk around, he would feed again."

The idea of someone being so cruel to my Bella caused me almost as much pain as she must have been as this was going on.

"He seemed to believe that the feeding caused my change to start slowly which would leave me stronger in the end. He explained everything to me because he found that newborns had better control when they knew what to expect. Like I said, he had tried this many times before.

"I had been hand-picked by him to lead the army of newborns he was planning on creating. He had watched me interact with others and seemed to think that I had the necessary people skills for the job.

"When the day finally came for him to change me, I hardly noticed. I was still fairly weak. He had fed the day before. He said it made the change faster if you had less blood in you. I didn't care. My thoughts were so muddled by blood loss that I wouldn't have cared if he had suddenly announced that he was Santa Claus and had to leave that night to deliver presents to all the eager children.

"It almost killed me. The change did. I felt death coming for me. I felt its sweet embrace, but I knew I couldn't leave yet. I had to kill him before he could do this to another human. I would be the last person to suffer like this. That's what I held on to the entire time. I had to survive just long enough to kill my creator.

"I still remember the expression on his face when I turned on him. I still remember the way his head cracked as I pulled it off. I remember the putrid smell of his ashes." Her eyes were haunted. She stared straight ahead. She was trembling so hard she looked more like a blur than anything else. I pulled her over into my lap and rocked her back and forth.

"It's okay love. He deserved everything you gave him and more. If he were still alive I would have already gone and killed him for what he did to you. You did the right thing. Think of all the other people you helped by killing him. Because you took him out of this world, he was no longer able to continue with his terrible experiments." She gazed at me with eyes that were unseeing. She looked desperate. Her hands gripped my shoulders tightly and her eyes whirled in their sockets. She was searching for acceptance. For forgiveness and approval.

"Bella. Bella!" I grasped her face in my hands, forcing her eyes to focus on me. Making sure she heard me, I leaned forward. "You did the right thing." And then I leaned in the rest of the way and kissed her, gently. She paused for a moment, but then she kissed me back, lightly. Slowly, she stopped trembling. He eyes came back into focus.

"Thank you." She said gratefully as she finally pulled back. She turned around and leaned back into my chest. I felt her squeeze my hand tightly as she finished the story. "Right. So after I killed him, I had no place to go. I had heard him talking about the Volturi, so I decided that I might as well go and visit them while I got used to my new body.

"They were very welcoming. I planned to stay with them for a couple weeks, but ended up staying for two months. I hated how I had to kill people, but I didn't know there was another choice at the time, and what else was I supposed to do? My life was fine, until the day that I discovered my power.

"I still don't know how exactly it happened. I don't care. All that matters is I found out what my power was, and suddenly the Volturi were much less eager to have me leave. Aro especially." She looked around at our quizzical faces and sighed. "My power is that I can go anywhere and do practically anything without ever leaving where I am. There's also the added bonus of my being invisible. I can walk through walls and stone and run faster than you can imagine. I can touch and move things as long as they aren't living. You all just found out recently that you can see me if you close your eyes, but at the time we didn't know that.

"I would be the ultimate information gatherer for the Volturi. Really, the only problem with my power is that if I'm somewhere else, I leave my real body completely unprotected. Anyone could attack me, and I would feel it, but I would have to run all the way back to my body before I could move at all. If I were, say, halfway around the world, I would never make it back in time. I'm not all-powerful, but no one else seemed to be able to grasp that. I would be the ultimate spy for the Volturi in their ongoing battle against the Romanians. They wanted me badly.

"But the thing was, I wasn't interested in staying there forever. While they had been welcoming, I didn't like the way everyone was suspicious of everyone, or the war-like atmosphere. I saw Aro's expression when I told him about my power, and I knew I needed to leave quietly, and before he could make up his mind to keep me there.

"I left the next night. Out of spite more than anything else, I fed in the city before I left. I was already a wanted woman. This wouldn't change my status.

"I caught up with the Amazonian coven. That's where I learned how to fight and everything. That's also where I first heard about you guys. They talked about how insane you were to deny your nature, but I grasped at you idea with the first hope I had felt in months. There was a way for me to not be as much of a monster. I tried it later that day and found it to my liking. It wasn't as good as humans, but I wasn't murdering someone every time I got thirsty.

"I followed it for a while. Only a month after I found the Amazonians, the Romanians found me. They came in the middle of the day and tried to take me by force. They captured me and made me watch as they tortured and almost killed each member of the coven. I managed to escape by a long series of lucky events, but by that time I had realized that I was a danger to anyone near me. I left then.

"For a few days, I wandered aimlessly, not sure what I wanted to do. Finally, the idea to return home came to me. I rejected it almost immediately, but it just wormed itself in further and further into my mind. If I could just do this, if I could just do that, then maybe no one would notice the difference.

"Eventually, I hatched a plan out of desperation. Normally plans like that fail, but I had plenty of time to plan this one out and make it work. I invented my suit that gave me a pulse and body heat. I stole the blood from hospitals, convincing myself that I was actually using less blood than I would if I were still feeding from humans.

"The suit was designed to make the blood much less protected than it normally was so that I would smell only slightly better than a regular human rather than like stale blood. I decided it would be better to just not talk after realizing that I had no memory of what I had sounded like as a human. I bought the black clothes to cover up my new looks.

"And with that all in place, I spent the next few months smelling fresh human blood and building up my restraint as far as it would go. Next thing I knew, I was standing outside Charlie's door with blood pumping through my fake veins and a white board clenched in my hand, feigning memory loss. I got a job at a warehouse and school and signed up for college classes online. I closed myself off from Angela and all the other people who tried to talk to me and went about my life as normally as I possibly could. That's when you guys showed up." She leaned back against my chest and I could tell that she was almost done.

"I was just hiding here for a year, if that. That was the plan all along. No one would expect a newborn to have the kind of restraint necessary to live with humans, and I'm using that to my advantage. It won't be long now. In fact, they would be here right now if they weren't so busy looking for me out in the ocean. They caught up to me the other day. You all saw what happened. Felix was in the desert and a plane flew by overhead. He saw my head in the window, and promptly threw a rock into the engine. That's why it crashed.

"I would have been able to escape without him seeing me but…uh…something came up and I couldn't wait for him to go in the other direction before leaving, so he ended up chasing me. I hid from him in a cave for a while, and then I swam out and hid in the ocean. He followed my scent path to its end and now they're scouring the coast.

"So don't you all see? I refused both of them, and they know they can't force me to spy for them, so now they're just terrified that the other coven will find a way to convince me to work with them. They pretty much believe that I join them or die, and since I won't join, they're both trying to kill me.

"That's why I cut off from everybody. I can handle this as long as it's only my life on the line. If they figure out that I made friends, let alone fell in _love_ they would kill all of you. They seem to think that it would break me if they killed all of my loved ones and make me realize that the only option is to join them that I'll just come quietly.

"I understand if you guys want me to leave now, I really do. Honestly, it's what I've been expecting this whole time. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near me if it meant that I would die. It's up to you guys, but whatever you decide, I will obey. If you all want me to go, then you can count on never seeing me again. Not even…" She was almost crying now, and her voice caught. A look of total determination covered her face though, and she seemed positive that she wouldn't sob. She scowled every time she had to pause. "Not even if you close your eyes. I will leave you all completely alone. It'll be like I never existed."

She shook her head as if trying to ward off her sadness. "So, any questions?"

**A/N: So there you go. Sorry it took me so ridiculously long. I had no idea where I was going with this story, but I know now.**

**I hope the explanation lived up to your expectations. I thought it was pretty good. Make sure to tell me if I missed something. I want to be able to fix it.**

**Got any suggestions for my story? I know how it's all gonna end, but I have no idea how I'm going to get there. If I like them, I'll try to put them in my story.**

**~Purgatory**

**P.S. I'm really starting to get into Paramore. I never really like popular music, but I adore Paramore. Who else likes them?**

**Review review review! (please?)**


	16. goodbye

Hey. It's me. Yeah, I know. I'm not supposed to have an author's note as a chapter, but I need to do this.

I had another epiphany. I'm too addicted to FanFiction. That's right. It's tragic. I've been spending so much time on FanFiction that I can't think about anything else. Ever. And I'm a Christian, so my life should be centered on GOD, not stories online that talk about vampires.

So, this is goodbye. Not for forever, but for a _long time_. I'm not reading or writing any more FanFiction. For a whole year. I'm discontinuing my stories, because even once I come back, I'll be so changed that I doubt I'll be able to continue them.

Anyone who wants to can adopt my stories, or write sequels. You don't have to tell me you're going to, just go ahead. I'm not going to delete them, but I won't change them either.

This is such a fantastic website, I wish I didn't have to do this.

On a second note, I have a friend reading this who I haven't been completely honest with. I'm not going to call her by name, but I'm going to give her a hint. I showed her FanFiction, and then guided her to my stories, not telling her they were mine.

Here's how you'll know if I'm talking about you. Go to my profile (top of the page, click on the link of my pen name) and look at the poem I have posted there, specifically who wrote it. You'll know what I mean if it's you.

Thank you all for being so awesome and writing such wonderful stories. I'll miss them all.

Adieu,

School-is-my-pugatory


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